Can confirm, this happened to me a few years ago. Thankfully I realized it minutes after it renewed itself and managed to get a refund, but the customer service was adamant that I did not turn off auto-renew. I did. I specifically double-checked a week before my plan was supposed to expire--I always have subscription expiration dates on my calendar bc of shit like this. Deleted my account as soon as I got my money back. Fuck NordVPN.

because it is known to magically set itself back to auto-renewal close to renewal.

Wow, that's super shady. Puts them more firmly on my 'nope' pile

You are correct! Good luck to them renewing off gift card with no money on it though.