6%
Find the biller
Original biller controls cancellation
→STATE OF CANCELLATION
Where cancellation friction shows up.
Official records reveal patterns in billing, equipment, account closure and company responses. They do not prove that every complaint is accurate—or that a company is difficult to cancel.
CancelScore is based on the company’s verified cancellation process. Complaint records help us find patterns and decide what to investigate; they never change a score by themselves.
01CANCELLATION FRICTION INDEX
Some industries make leaving much harder.
A 0–100 industry benchmark built from the same documented process evidence used by CancelScore. Higher means more friction.
02–03ACCESS + OBSTACLES
Can you cancel online—and what gets in the way?
Switch views to compare online availability with the requirements people most often encounter.
Based on 200 published guides with complete scoring evidence. “Online” includes a company or original-biller account route.
04INDUSTRY POLICY MATRIX
Compare the rules at a glance.
Sort the table to see where notice, commitments and aftercare create the greatest burden.
Sort industries by
IndustryFrictionOnlineNoticeContractReturns
Home security and home warranties3 guides80%0%0%100%0%
Storage3 guides65%0%100%100%0%
Internet and mobile24 guides55%17%0%88%33%
Gyms and fitness18 guides54%39%39%72%0%
Insurance and protection5 guides42%40%0%60%0%
Credit and identity protection2 guides35%50%0%50%0%
Insurance4 guides30%0%0%0%0%
Software and digital services21 guides27%90%29%29%0%
Shopping and memberships10 guides27%60%30%20%0%
Streaming video11 guides25%82%9%27%18%
Health and wellness7 guides21%100%14%14%0%
Business software9 guides20%89%0%11%0%
05CANCELLATION JOURNEY
Cancellation is more than finding a button.
Friction can appear before, during and after the request. A single guide may contain requirements at several stages.
28%
Find the controls
Must contact support
→16%
Give notice
Advance notice required
→32%
Clear commitments
Contract or remaining-balance risk
→29%
Finish aftercare
Equipment or multi-step aftercare
→100%
Keep proof
Confirmation and final bill to retain
TELECOM FRICTION
Billing dominates public FCC reports.
The FCC file supports comparisons by service and issue—not by company. Counts below cover selected billing and equipment reports since October 2014.
ServiceBillingEquipment
Phone
303,180reports
119,960reports
Internet
201,713reports
36,879reports
TV
119,773reports
22,311reports
SELECTED REPORTS
Phone leads the three services.
01Phone423,140
02Internet238,592
03TV142,084
These are consumer-selected, unverified allegations. Different customer bases make raw company comparisons inappropriate.
06ISSUE MIX + DIRECTION OF TRAVEL
See how telecom friction changes month to month.
Switch between phone, internet and television. The chart combines billing and equipment reports and marks incomplete periods instead of smoothing them away.
15,3287,6640
Jan 24
Apr 24
Jul 24
Oct 24
Jan 25
Apr 25
Jul 25
Oct 25
Jan 26
Apr 26
Jul 26
Billing + equipment reportsAugust 2026 is partialOctober 2025 source gap
THREE-YEAR VIEW
Consumer-report categories are moving differently.
FTC Consumer Sentinel aggregates show broad market direction. They include reports from multiple contributors and are not cancellation-only counts.
Industry category202220232024Change
Credit bureaus590,872713,0441.4M+129%
Banks & lenders263,755291,684351,543+33%
Debt collection113,050127,418218,736+93%
Auto related179,231187,673197,015+10%
Internet services139,007134,137151,412+9%
Credit cards89,823103,206126,368+41%
Percent change compares 2022 with 2024. Raw report volumes should be interpreted alongside market size and reporting behavior.
07GEOGRAPHIC + DEMOGRAPHIC VIEW
Reporting frequency and financial impact tell different stories.
FTC fraud data is broader than cancellation. It adds useful context about who reports losses and where reports are concentrated.
Highest state rates in 2024
State rates are normalized by population. Identity theft is not a cancellation measure.Loss is less frequent—but larger—with age.
20–29$41744% reported a loss
30–39$45040% reported a loss
40–49$50038% reported a loss
50–59$52035% reported a loss
60–69$69129% reported a loss
70–79$1,00024% reported a loss
80+$1,65021% reported a loss
Q3 2026 BRIEFING
The evidence, packaged for deeper analysis.
Download the industry friction table and obstacle breakdown used in this report. The file includes coverage counts so the figures can be interpreted responsibly.
Prepared August 25, 2026 · Aggregate industry findings only
DATA COVERAGE
What each source can—and cannot—tell us.
The public datasets operate at different levels. Keeping those boundaries visible prevents misleading rankings.
Financial-services patterns
- Product, issue and sub-issue
- Response type and timely-response flag
- State, submission channel and selected tags
- Some anonymized consumer narratives
Industry-level telecom friction
- Service form, issue and method
- Issue and submission dates
- City, state and ZIP-level geography
- No reliable public company field
Market-wide consumer trends
- Categories and yearly trends
- Loss, payment and contact methods
- Age and state-level aggregates
- Detailed reports restricted to law enforcement
Business disclosures
- Subscriber, churn and retention risks
- Contract and refund liabilities
- Regulatory and litigation disclosures
- Not a complaint or cancellation database
Four questions the industry view can answer.
Where is friction concentrated?
Compare billing and equipment problems across phone, internet and television services.
Is the direction changing?
Use like-for-like monthly and annual comparisons rather than a single lifetime total.
Which markets stand out?
Compare broad FTC categories without turning consumer allegations into company rankings.
What can the data prove?
Use public records to find patterns, then verify cancellation rules from primary sources.
READ THE FINE PRINT
Transparent by design.
Complaint datasets are not representative consumer surveys. Company size, market share, reporting behavior and dataset coverage all affect the totals.