Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open.

Magazine subscription leads to unauthorized recurring payment
You have a subscription that costs $25 They have the capabilities to get that $25 from the card on file if you had stopped paying for it, you re-upping the cost of the subscription was more of a courtesy. They would have considered pulling the $25 themselves or it may have gone to collections (or they could courteously ask if you wanted to resubscribe, what a concept) The credit card processing agreements (with the credit card companies) and the FTC would handle such business practices, but "illegal" wouldn't be the word I would use. The FTC or Congress may have mandated that an easy "opt-out" number be associated with that kind of business practice, and left it at that.