There are many types of malicious apps running rampant in Google’s Play Store, ranging from good old fashioned adware to spyware and ransomware, but Android users may need to be more concerned about a relatively new phenomenon discovered and documented by security researchers over at SophosLabs that pushes the boundaries of what is traditionally considered malware.

A common practice employed by many of these largely obscure companies to make big bucks off careless users seems to be charging for subscriptions even those people that uninstall their apps before the free trial period concludes. While most devs acting in good faith would interpret that as a clear sign that their “subscribers” want out before having to actually pay anything, the villainous minds behind the rapidly spreading fleeceware epidemic will not cancel your subscription unless you explicitly ask for that.

In certain cases, users complaining about the malicious behaviour of the apps monitored by Sophos even claim their credit cards were charged after cancelling their subscriptions during the free trial window, which definitely crosses the border between shady and outright heinous practices.

Without further ado, here are the 21 Android apps (ordered by popularity) identified as fleeceware that you need to avoid at all costs so you don’t risk spending a small fortune on substandard services or features you may not even end up using:

By the way, if you’re wondering how some of these largely unknown apps have been able to exceed impressive install tallies of 5, 50, and even 100 million, the answer is probably as nefarious as their fleeceware tactics. Specifically, paid services supplying a large number of phony 5-star reviews, as well as artificially bloated install figures.