A charge from NYTIMES or NYTIMES DISC on your statement

NYTIMES, NYTIMES*, NYTIMES*NYTIMES and NYTIMES DISC* are The New York Times, billed for a digital or home delivery subscription. The most common billing cycle is every four weeks, so in some months you are charged twice.¹² In Delaware’s card records, one state office paid $28 on a 28-day cycle and had 13 charges in a single calendar year.⁵

What it looks like on a real statement

The Times’s help pages do not say what its charges are called on a card statement. The State of Delaware publishes every purchase its employees make on state cards, with the merchant name as the bank received it. When we counted on 4 October 2026, 741 lines had a merchant name starting with NYTIMES, from 16 March 2020 to 24 August 2026, from 15 state offices and school districts.⁵

What NYTIMES DISC means on a statement

Neither the Times nor the data says what DISC stands for. What the Delaware lines show is when it appears. Of the 230 lines with DISC in the name, 164 are exactly $4.00 and 227 are $20 or less.⁵ In twelve offices and schools in the data, the first Times charge was a DISC line. The four in the table below show the plainest pattern: thirteen DISC charges at one low price, about four weeks apart, and then, on the next cycle, a line without DISC at a higher price, or no further charge. In others the DISC lines ran for fewer charges, such as seven at $4.00 before $25.00 for the Department of Natural Resources’ water division in March 2026.⁵

Thirteen charges four weeks apart is one year. So in these offices DISC sits on the lower first-year price and goes away when the higher price begins. That fits what the Times’s terms say about promotions: a promotional rate "will continue to automatically renew at the full rate" unless you cancel before the promotional period ends.⁴ If your statement shows a DISC line, expect the amount to go up after a year, and possibly the name to change with it.

Two DISC lines on the same day can be two subscriptions. The Department of Justice was charged two $4.00 DISC lines on the same day, thirteen times from 21 June 2021 to 21 May 2022, alongside a separate subscription at $25, later $28. On 18 June 2022 both became $17.00 lines without DISC.⁵

Why you can see two charges in a month

The Times’s billing page says it offers "a variety of billing cycles" and that "the most common payment cycle is every four weeks, which can result in two billing cycles (two charges) occurring in the same month". It adds that "all subscriptions are billed in advance".¹

The Delaware lines show that cycle in practice. One department’s $28 charge came on 3 January, 31 January, 28 February, 28 March, 25 April, 23 May, 20 June, 18 July, 15 August, 12 September, 10 October, 7 November and 5 December 2023: thirteen charges, every 28 days, two of them in January.⁵ Four weeks thirteen times is 364 days, so a four-weekly plan costs thirteen payments a year, not twelve.

The same plan under different names

Do not take a different name for a different charge. Two examples from the Delaware data:

• The Governor’s office paid $17 every 28 days. The line read NYTIMES through 1 November 2020, and NYTIMES*NYTIMES from the next charge on 29 November 2020, without a gap in the cycle.⁵
• The Department of Justice paid $28 every 28 days. The name was NYTIMES*NYTIMES until 2024, then NYTIMES* on 24 April 2024, NYTIMES*NYTIMES again on 21 May 2024, and NYTIMES* from 14 August 2024 on.⁵

The data does not say why. A line you do not recognise may be the subscription you know, so look for the amount and the 28-day gap, not for last month’s exact wording.

Other reasons the amount or count changed

The Times lists these for a charge of a different size: your promotional rate ended and the standard rate began; you upgraded or downgraded; or a credit for a paused delivery or a reported delivery problem was applied to the bill.¹² Its terms say a promotional rate "will continue to automatically renew at the full rate" unless you cancel before the promotional period ends, and that a free trial "will automatically convert into a paid subscription" if you do not cancel.⁴ The Athletic is billed and cancelled separately; cancelling the Times does not cancel it.³⁴

What the terms say about refunds

The Terms of Sale, effective 9 March 2026, say "When you cancel a subscription, you cancel only future charges", and the cancellation "will become effective at the end of your current billing period". A cancellation during a free trial takes effect immediately. If you cancel before the period ends, "you will not be charged or you will be eligible to receive a refund for additional charges".⁴

For a charge already made, the terms say: "YOUR SUBSCRIPTION FEE IS NONREFUNDABLE", with no credit for time remaining, "except as otherwise stated in these Terms of Sale or as required by applicable law". The Times keeps the right to refund or credit at its own discretion and is "under no obligation to issue the same or similar refund in the future". There is one stated exception for print: if you cancel a combined print and digital subscription that was not monthly, such as one paid for a quarter or a year, the Times "will refund you the pro-rata prepaid amount of unserved copies" of print. The same terms say a user may have a legal right to cancel and get a refund, depending on where they live and what they bought.⁴

The Delaware data has refund lines for the Times too: eight negative lines in all, from $0.54 to $553.18.⁵ They show that the Times does refund; they do not show what any of them were for.

How to find it and stop it

1. Find the account Search your email, including spam, for "New York Times" and the amount, and check every address you might have signed up with. The Times says a second account, including one under an Apple private relay address, bills separately. On an Apple device, look under Settings, your name, Password & Security, Apps Using Your Apple ID.²
2. Cancel the subscription In your account, choose Subscription Overview, then Cancel your Subscription in the Manage Subscription section. Or call 866-273-3612 (United States; 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Monday to Friday, 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. on weekends and holidays), or use the chat on the help page in the same hours. A subscription bought through Apple or Google Play is cancelled with them, not the Times.³ Cancelling takes effect at the end of the period you already paid for, so the charge already made is not undone by it.⁴
3. Ask for the money back Say what you want in writing and when the charge was made; the refund is the Times’s decision under its terms, so write down who you spoke to and when.⁴
4. If nobody you know has the account, go to your bank The terms say that if you think someone else used your account or you are charged for a product you do not have, you should contact the Times’s customer care.⁴ If that gets you nowhere, or you do not think the card was yours to charge, ask your bank to dispute the charge and ask what its deadline is. It depends on the bank, the card network and the reason, and missing it can end your options.

Is this a scam?

The name is real: these lines are the Times’s own, and the Delaware data shows more than seven hundred ordinary charges under them.⁵ A small $4.00 line marked DISC is the most common Times amount in that data, so the amount on its own is not a sign of fraud. That does not make every such charge wanted. If your email and your family’s have no trace of a subscription, treat it as someone else’s purchase on your card and take it to your bank.

Why this page is on a site about held money

This site records payment companies that hold back money that belongs to someone else. The Times is not in the incident record; this page is here so that people searching for a name on a statement find the answer. Other subscriptions that renew by themselves are NETFLIX.COM, ADOBE *ADOBE, GAN*NEWSPAPER SUB and STK*SHUTTERSTOCK. Other lines are in the table of statement names.

Sources

1. The New York Times Help Center, "Understanding Your Bill": billing cycle, "billed in advance", why the amount changes. help.nytimes.com. Read on 4 October 2026. Archived copy of 4 October 2026.
2. The New York Times Help Center, "Payment Issues": "Why Was I Billed Twice In One Month?", a separate subscription under another email address, Apple private relay. help.nytimes.com. Read on 4 October 2026. Archived copy of 4 October 2026.
3. The New York Times Help Center, "Cancel Your Subscription": account, phone, chat, hours, The Athletic, purchases through a third party. help.nytimes.com. Read on 4 October 2026. Archived copy of 4 October 2026.
4. The New York Times, "Terms of Sale", effective 9 March 2026: sections 1.6 (billing), 1.8 (free trials and promotions), 2.1, 4 (legal right to cancel) (cancellation and refunds of subscriptions). help.nytimes.com. Read on 4 October 2026. Archived copy of 4 October 2026.
5. State of Delaware Open Data, State Employee Credit Card Transactions, fields "merchant", "trans_dt", "dept_name", "div_name" and "merchandise_amt". Lines starting with NYTIMES. Queried and counted on 4 October 2026; DISC lines counted again on 11 October 2026 (741 lines in both counts). The examples are the Department of Justice ($28, 1 March 2022 to 8 August 2026, and the two $4.00 DISC lines from 21 June 2021), the Office of the Governor ($17, 3 April 2020 to 16 April 2023), and the four Department of State offices in the DISC table, each read line by line by office and date.