In an economic climate plagued by inflation with an ever-increasing cost of living, protecting ordinary people, not the top 1%, in the U.S. is important. Our laws should reflect this and value consumer rights over corporations.
In 2025, Illinois introduced almost 300 new laws, some of which rightfully highlight the importance of protecting the consumer.
Act HB4911 requires fitness centers to allow members to cancel their subscriptions by mail, online – if they signed up online – or by the email address provided in the contract, if one was provided. The ability to sign up for things online makes purchasing a subscription much easier than in person.
“The businesses have basically sort of gotten this uneven windfall that is able to acquire customers for a much lower cost, but they’re able to then keep the cost to cancel that relatively high by insisting that you call,” said NIU assistant professor of law Peter Ormerod.
Illinois’ introduction of this law prevents this disconnect from costing consumers.
“It seems like appropriate legislative response,” Ormerod said. “If you’re going to get the upside of getting new members to the gym through the internet, then at the very least you should allow them to use the same means that they signed up with in order to cancel.”
Gym memberships are notoriously hard to cancel. This new law will hopefully curb that challenge.
“It took me a while in 2020 to cancel my gym membership at Planet Fitness,” Gael De Santiago, a junior finance major, said. “I made phone calls, and they said I had to come in person. So I had to go in person to get that done.”
Another law that became effective on Jan. 1 was Act SB2764 which affects how consumers are charged for automatic contract renewals.
The law requires that those who sell a subscription to a consumer must provide instructions on how to cancel that subscription. It also states that if a subscription comes with a free trial 15 days or longer the consumer must be notified of the renewal at least three days before the cancellation deadline.
This ensures people don’t forget they signed up for a free trial, forget to cancel and get unknowingly charged for a service they may not even wish to have.
“I think they should have a mandatory notice because if they don’t, I feel like it’s natural for a lot of people to forget or not remember,” Tia Fornatoro, a sophomore marketing major, said. “Finances might be kind of tougher for some people. They might only be interested in using it (the subscription) for the free, limited period of time. So like to get a big charge or even just like a $40, $50 charge could not be great for some people.”
As our economy changes and the amount of online subscriptions increases, it is important that consumer rights are protected. Most of us are not made of money, and even the wealthy don’t want to waste income on a subscription they have no use for.
While the federal government may not make these laws, hopefully Illinois will show a continued interest in passing them.
“With the change in administration, a lot of those efforts at the federal level are very likely to peter out and not have a lot of enforcement behind them,” Ormerod said. “What I think we will probably see is states, and states that are dominated by Democrats, are more likely to sort of take up that mantle, at least for the next four years.”
