Class Action Alleges Amazon's Subscribe & Save Plan Rife With Fraud

An Aug. 25 consumer fraud class-action complaint in Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, alleging Amazon’s Subscribe & Save automatic-renewal purchase program entraps consumers belongs instead in U.S. .District Court in Chicago, said Amazon in a notice of removal Monday (docket 1:22-cv-05225). The Chicago federal court has “original jurisdiction” under the Class Action Fairness Act because the putative class includes more than 100 members, there is minimal diversity of citizenship and the amount in controversy exceeds $5 million, said Amazon’s notice.

Cook County resident Alexandria Nicholas brought the class action “to obtain redress for consumers who have been harmed” by Amazon’s use of “unfair and deceptive business practices in implementing” Subscribe & Save, said her original complaint. Though Amazon advertises Subscribe & Save as a way for consumers to “simplify their online shopping experience and save money, Amazon intentionally designed the program using “deceptive dark pattern elements,” it said.

Dark patterns are online user interfaces that are devised to confuse the public and “manipulate users into taking certain actions against their own interests,” said the complaint. Their ultimate purpose is to make consumers “overspend on items they do not need,” or overpay for items they do need, it said. The program ultimately makes it “unreasonably difficult” for consumers to cancel their automatic purchase subscriptions, it said. Though Amazon markets Subscribe & Save with a “cancel anytime” option, Amazon “strategically omits the fact that even though a Subscribe & Save item can be shipped as quickly as the next day, a user who wishes to skip or cancel a delivery must provide at least eight days' notice to do so,” it said.

Plaintiff Nicholas herself “experienced the frustration and other costs associated with trying and failing to cancel a Subscribe & Save order firsthand,” said her complaint. On Jan. 24 and again on June 17, she initiated a Subscribe & Save subscription account for two brands of dog food through Amazon’s smartphone app, it said. Though she believed she had successfully canceled the orders subsequently through Amazon’s website, shipments of the dog food kept arriving at her door, it said.

Nicholas “would not have subscribed to the Subscribe & Save program had she known that the cancellation process was disproportionately harder than that of initiating a subscription,” said the complaint. She experienced financial harm as a result from her unwanted subscription renewals, “in addition to the time wasted attempting to cancel her subscriptions,” it said. Though Amazon didn’t respond Tuesday to requests for comment on the allegations, its notice of removal said the company denies Nicholas is “entitled to any relief.”