Bull spit. These companies purposely make it hard to cancel hoping you’ll get frustrated and hang up. Ever try to cancel a charge to your phone or direct withdrawal? They always charge one or two more times than they should because they know it’s not worth it to sue them for their extra fees. Then they keep the money.
Don’t know how the US banking system, but with our banks you can stop an automatic payment with a single Stop Payment order.
FWIW I *never* do automatic payments for anybody; it’s just as easy to set up an auto-pay via my own bank where I have 100% control.
The exercise/gym "Curves" tried it with my wife, we eventually got our money back that they took from our account for three extra months.
It was the first and last time we ever gave our account routing number to anyone.
The C.U. told us the only way to stop it was to cancel our checking account and open a new one. My wife tried a different tactic that worked. She went to "Curves" several times and explained the problem to them in a very loud manner, in front of customers.
It worked and we got our money back.