Subscription traps: who are Howly and JustAnswer?

Online question-and-answer services can appear at the top of search engine results, promising to connect you with ‘verified experts’, yet reports to Which? suggest they are little more than costly subscription traps. 

Howly and JustAnswer tempt you with a small charge initially – as little as £1 – but if you miss the small print, you'll face recurring monthly payments of up to £50. People told us they had no idea they would incur such steep subscription costs, or assumed they were giving their card details to entirely different businesses.

Our investigation looks at the marketing tactics behind these services and explains why, although we wouldn’t go so far as calling them a scam, we think you should steer well clear of them. 

Complaints about Howly and JustAnswer

We’ve received five reports about Howly to our Scam Sharer tool so far in 2025, all from people who were shocked to notice it had set up recurring payments. 

One person went online to contact Aviva, for example, to request a copy of his policy terms. He clicked on a link for what he thought was the Live Chat feature on the Aviva website and agreed to pay £1, which would apparently be refunded. 

He said: ‘I thought this was for the booklet or a form of security which Aviva operated; however, it transpired that I was on a site called Howly. I became suspicious and phoned my bank, which advised that £24 had been drawn on the card! In my view, this is sharp practice. One positive is that Howly did cancel the monthly charge.’

Others believed they were messaging M&S, Openreach, a delivery company, or their energy supplier. The latter described her conversation with Octopus as being ‘interrupted by Howly’ and, as she had been discussing her tariff, she also agreed to pay the £1 processing fee.

‘This was immediately followed by a further request for £24 as an ongoing charge. My bank sent me a text message to say that I had two suspicious charges via my credit card.’

We received a handful of reports about JustAnswer to our Scam Sharer tool too, some of which are strikingly similar to those about Howly. For example, one person thought JustAnswer was linked to BT, as they appeared to be speaking to an engineer who confirmed that the network was down. He agreed to pay the refundable £1, but said no refund came through, and £35 was taken a few days later. 

Another was seeking help for a problem with their Mac and assumed JustAnswer was a free forum service, until they noticed £35 had left their account. The rest had US tax questions or tried to contact Microsoft Office support. 

Where could you come across Howly and JustAnswer?

We think you’re most likely to encounter these question-and-answer subscription services through advertising on search engines. 

Both US-based JustAnswer Corporation and a Cyprus-based company called VHAPPS Limited (which was promoting Howly.com at the time of writing) are currently listed as verified Google advertisers. 

We've previously spotted Google adverts for JustAnswer when searching for Virgin contact details, which could be misconstrued because they referred to 'Virgin Online Chat 24/7' and 'Receive the Virgin Technicians Answer'. At the time of writing, we didn’t see adverts for either website on the first page of Google results when we searched for ‘contact Apple for Mac help’, ‘help BT support’ and ‘EE help’. 

Sponsored posts for Howly did appear at the top of search results – above the official websites of Apple, BT and EE – when we made the same checks on Microsoft-owned Bing. And, it's easy to see why people might be confused by these adverts, as they refer to things like 'Contact Ee Customer Services' or 'Contacting Bt Customer Services'. 

Microsoft told us: 'We take user safety and security seriously and are committed to maintaining a trustworthy advertising experience. We’re investigating this report and will take action as appropriate in adherence with our Misleading Content Policies, which prohibit advertising content that is deceptive, fraudulent or that can be harmful to users. When we become aware of ad instances that violate our policies, we take action to remove them as soon as possible. We then apply the feedback into our detection mechanisms to improve our ability to detect and remove similar ads in the future. We encourage people to share feedback or report any issues via this form.'

Google said: 'Protecting users is our top priority and we have strict policies that govern the types of advertisers we allow on our platforms. We enforce our policies vigorously, and if we find ads that are in violation we remove them. We continue to invest significant resources to stop bad actors and we are constantly evaluating and updating our policies and improving our technology to keep our users safe.'

Why we think you should avoid Howly and JustAnswer

For starters, we don't think these services offer good value for money: Howly says it charges UK users £1 plus £24 per month for ‘unlimited access to expert consultations’, while you could pay as much as £50 a month for 'legal answers from licenced lawyers' with JustAnswer. 

Both websites explain their pricing at the point of asking for card details, and you should be able to get unexpected charges refunded by emailing them, or using chargeback and Section 75 via your card provider if they refuse. Your card provider can also block future payments. 

But it’s clear to us that they need to do a much better job of informing users early on about the nature and cost of their services, given the complaints we have received from users of these sites.

When we tested whether these websites would be crystal clear about their services when prompted, for example, by asking their AI-powered chatbots 'are you Apple or a different company', they ignored our questions before redirecting us to a payment page. In one chat, JustAnswer told us we were dealing with ‘Pearl Chatbot, Apple Technician's Assistant’ which we think is particularly misleading, as it suggests you are dealing with an Apple employee. 

The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) said it has received 14 complaints about JustAnswer and made two informal rulings in 2021 and 2022. In both cases, it agreed to amend its ads without being subject to a formal investigation. It has only received one complaint about Howly to date. 

JustAnswer appears twice on the review site Trustpilot. One is for justanswer.co.uk, with only 11% one-star reviews at the time of writing. The second is for my-secure.justanswer.co.uk, with 97% one-star reviews – you can guess which profile has been claimed by the business. We asked Trustpilot if the two JustAnswer profiles had been assessed for fake reviews in April, and were told that it found ‘no clear fabrication patterns on either’. It explained that a business may have multiple profiles if a consumer leaving a review uses a slightly different domain address from the one that has been claimed by the business itself. 

Trustpilot originally told us that it would merge the two profiles to avoid any further confusion, but this still hadn’t happened when we checked in August, four months later. It has since closed the profile for my-secure.justanswer.co.uk to new reviews and added an alert redirecting users to the other profile.

JustAnswer is behind another website, Chatwithtechsupport.co.uk, which currently has 100% one-star reviews on Trustpilot.

Who is really behind Howly?

Howly is connected to at least three different business names. On Howly.com, it currently lists its business name and address as Technicium Corp, Delaware, USA. However, it referred to itself as Lemandale Limited, based in Gibraltar, in January 2024. 

It also uses the business name TSFF Holdings Limited, in Limassol, Cyprus, for its subdomain docs.howly.com (ie part of the same website), which charges an excessive $49 (around £36) a month for a ‘PDF Editor & Converter’. The same business name is listed on both ask-crew.com and anyexperts.com, yet more pricey question-and-answer subscription services. 

We asked Howly to explain its different business names, but we did not receive a response to this question. 

Howly and JustAnswer respond

We sent both companies examples of complaints and asked them to explain why people are surprised by the cost and nature of their services. 

Howly didn't address all of our questions, but it explained that all charges – the £1 trial fee, followed by a £24 monthly subscription – are disclosed during the sign-up process. 

It told us: 'Our website clearly states that we are an independent service provider and are not affiliated with any other organisations... This disclaimer is prominently displayed to ensure users understand that Howly operates independently and do not confuse Howly with any other service. While the language can always be further optimised, the communication from the AI Assistant already specifies that a user interacts with Howly. We trust this response provides the necessary clarification.'

JustAnswer said it takes customer satisfaction seriously and cited the official Trustpilot page for JustAnswer UK, which has more than 37,000 reviews, with 81% rated five stars and thanked us for bringing the second profile to its attention.

It said: 'We are reaching out to Trustpilot to see if they will combine the entries so that all customer feedback is addressable. At JustAnswer, our mission is to connect people with verified experts for fast, affordable help and have supported millions of customers worldwide over the past 20+ years. 

'We strive to provide excellent customer service and clear information about our subscription model. Our pricing and subscription details are outlined on our pricing page, which is linked from the homepage. Our support team is available 24/7 via phone, chat, and email, to address any concerns. Lastly, Howly.com is not owned by, operated by or affiliated with JustAnswer.'