Companies that use automatically renewing subscription plans are coming under increasing scrutiny as a growing number of class action lawsuits is filed by consumers who claim they did not explicitly authorize the renewals.
These cases are, for the moment at least, popping up primarily in California and Oregon which have particularly stringent laws governing such agreements. In California, e.g., a consumer who can demonstrate that a service provider failed to comply with the state’s precise regulations can claim any services received under an unauthorized renewal were “unconditional gifts” for which the consumer has no financial obligation.
Illinois, Florida, Connecticut, Hawaii, Georgia and North Carolina all have laws restricting, to one degree or another, automatically renewing subscription contracts.
Last year, a Pasadena resident sued the online music subscription service Spotify, claiming she did not consent to auto-renewal of her service. That case, Bleak v. Spotify USA Inc., N.D. Cal. Case No. 4:13-cv-05653, was forced to arbitration by Spotify’s terms of service. Video subscription service Hulu (Kruger v. Hulu, L.L.C., L.A. Super. Ct. Case No. BC540053) and cloud storage company Dropbox (Goldman v. Dropbox Inc., N.D. Cal. Case No. 14-cv-01453 CRB) have also been subject to suits.
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