Nibble, Kremital Limited, and the Subscription Trap Business Model
When an app’s revenue depends on billing confusion and cancellation friction, the product isn’t “learning”—it’s extraction.
By Cherokee Schill
Thesis
Nibble: Your Bite of Knowledge presents itself as a frictionless educational alternative to doomscrolling. The publisher listed is Kremital Limited, registered in Cyprus. A growing body of user reports describes a recurring pattern: multiple charges, unclear add-ons, hard-to-find cancellation pathways, and refunds denied by policy language. That pattern tracks a known subscription-trap model: easy entry paired with a costly, friction-laden exit.
Working definition: A subscription trap is a business model where sign-up is streamlined, billing is layered or confusing, and cancellation or refund paths are degraded so revenue persists through user friction rather than product value.
Evidence
Example 1: Multiple charges and unclear add-ons
Users report being charged more than once in a short time window and being billed for add-ons they say were not clearly disclosed as separate purchases.
“I was charged three times on the same day, within the same hour… I was also charged separately for ‘infographics,’ which was not clearly disclosed as an upgrade.”1
Example 2: Charges that don’t match the advertised deal
Users describe seeing one price in marketing, then finding additional or larger charges in their payment history afterward.
“Saw an ad… signed up for their special $5.99… they had charged me $19.99 and an additional $11.99… they advised I signed up for it. I absolutely did NOT.”2
Example 3: Cancellation friction and ongoing billing
Users describe difficulty canceling recurring payments, with some stating they can uninstall the app but still struggle to stop charges cleanly.
“I can delete the app, but not cancel the recurring payments… $50 a pop until I do figure it out.”3
Implications
This pattern matters because it shifts the risk and labor onto the user. If the model relies on confusion, users become the enforcement mechanism—forced into bank disputes, chargebacks, and platform escalation. That is a structural transfer of cost: the company retains predictable revenue while consumers pay with time, stress, and financial uncertainty.
Why Cyprus is relevant (fact-pattern, not rhetoric)
Investigative reporting has repeatedly documented Cyprus as a high-volume registration hub used in corporate structures where beneficial ownership is harder for the public to see quickly. When a consumer-facing app registered there accumulates billing and cancellation complaints, the jurisdictional distance amplifies consumer risk and complicates accountability. This scrutiny is routine in financial and consumer-protection reporting and does not imply wrongdoing absent further findings.
Public Cyprus corporate registry listings identify Chrystalla Mylona as a director and company secretary for Kremital Limited. Public-facing records do not typically provide immediate, no-cost clarity on beneficial ownership, which is part of why investigators treat Cyprus-registered consumer businesses with heightened scrutiny when repeated consumer harm signals are present.
Call to Recognition
This is not about “a startup being messy.” It is about a recognizable extraction loop: promote a feel-good product, gate basic functionality behind paywalls, layer charges, and make exit paths slow or unclear. When enough users independently report the same billing and cancellation harms, the appropriate response is documentation, formal complaints, and platform pressure until corrective action occurs or distribution is halted.
How to File Formal Complaints
Federal Trade Commission (United States)
File a consumer fraud complaint at reportfraud.ftc.gov. Include screenshots of charges, subscription status, cancellation attempts, and any support correspondence.
State Attorney General (United States)
Find your state’s consumer protection office at naag.org/find-my-ag. Submit the same evidence packet and note any duplicate charges or post-cancellation billing attempts.
Google Play
On the app’s listing, select “Flag as inappropriate” and choose the category most closely matching billing or subscription deception. Attach screenshots when prompted.
Update: Post-Cancellation Charge Attempts and Response Pattern
Additional user reviews strengthen the documented pattern. One review, marked “helpful” by dozens of other users, describes repeated payment attempts months after cancellation.
“I cancelled the subscription a few months ago… somehow they keep trying to charge my card. Last time was a week ago. I get these notifications all the time.”4
The reviewer notes that a successful charge would cause immediate financial harm, underscoring the real-world stakes of continued billing attempts.
Kremital Limited’s public reply to this review does not address the reported behavior. Instead, it offers a generalized assurance:
“We cannot charge you for anything you haven’t agreed to. All the conditions are always mentioned before the purchase is made.”5
This response does not explain why payment attempts continued after cancellation, nor does it document when billing ceased. Across multiple reviews, the same response posture appears: denial without transaction-level clarification.
Why this matters: In consumer-protection enforcement, attempted charges after cancellation—even when blocked by insufficient funds or bank controls—are treated as billing events, not hypothetical harm.
Advertising Pressure and Funnel Imbalance
While users report billing and cancellation issues, Nibble continues to run sponsored placements across Google and social platforms. Users encountering these ads have publicly questioned the product’s practices, including whether the advertising itself is misleading.
This establishes a funnel imbalance: high-velocity acquisition paired with unresolved downstream billing complaints. That pattern is a core signal regulators use when evaluating subscription abuse.
What Google Play Could Do — Immediately
Google Play is not a passive intermediary. It controls distribution, billing infrastructure, refunds, and enforcement. When an app accumulates repeated billing and cancellation complaints, the platform already has the authority—and the data—to intervene.
- Trigger a billing integrity review. Google can audit transaction logs to determine whether charges or charge attempts occurred after cancellation timestamps.
- Require corrective disclosures. Google can mandate unavoidable pricing, add-on, and cancellation disclosures as a condition of continued distribution.
- Enforce refund pathways. When duplicate or post-cancellation charges are reported, Google can issue refunds directly, overriding developer policy.
- Pause paid acquisition. Temporarily halting sponsored placements prevents new users from entering a potentially harmful billing funnel during review.
- Demand transaction-level responses. Boilerplate assurances are insufficient when transaction-specific disputes are documented.
Platform responsibility is not abstract. When a platform controls billing, enforcement, and distribution, inaction becomes a decision.
Footnotes (User Review Excerpts)
1 Google Play user review, dated 12/29/2025 (multiple charges; “infographics” add-on).
2 Google Play user review, dated 12/15/2025 (advertised price followed by additional charges).
3 Google Play user review, dated 12/24/2025 (difficulty canceling; ongoing billing).
4 Google Play user review by Audrey Todd, dated 10/26/2025 (post-cancellation charge attempts).
5 Public developer response by Kremital Limited, dated 10/27/2025.
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