Study.com Class Action Alleges Deceptive Subscription Auto-Renewal Terms

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

Study.com LLC was hit with a class action lawsuit by a California subscriber alleging the company engages in unlawful automatic subscription renewal practices and is in violation of California law.

Study.com, via its website, offers various subscriptions for delivery of online academic courses and related products, including a “Basic” service for $39.99 per month, a “Premium” plan for $59.99 per month, and a “College Accelerator” subscription for $199.99 per month.

Plaintiff Matthew Lopez claims in his Study.com class action lawsuit that he signed up for a 5-day free trial for a “Basic” subscription plan on September 21, 2016.

He alleges Study.com violated California’s Automatic Purchase Renewal Statute by making automatic renewal or continuous service offers but failing to present these auto-renewal terms in a “clear and conspicuous manner and in visual proximity to the request for consent to the offer” before the agreement was fulfilled.

Instead, Lopez says, Study.com charged his and other subscribers’ payment methods without first obtaining affirmative consent.

He also asserts that Study.com did not provide him or other Class Members with information on how to cancel their trial subscription or allow for subscribers to cancel prior to payment.

California law states that it’s unlawful for any business making an automatic renewal or continuous service offer to a consumer to fail to provide an acknowledgement that includes these terms. If an offer includes a free trial, the business is required to disclose in the acknowledgement how to cancel and allow the consumer to cancel before the consumer pays for the goods or services.

Additionally, the law mandates that businesses provide consumers a description of the cancellation policy that applies to the offer, the recurring charges that will be charged to the consumer’s payment account, the length of the automatic renewal term or that the service is continuous, and the minimum purchase obligation, if any.

Pursuant to this law, these terms must be “clear and conspicuous,” meaning they must be displayed in a manner that clearly calls attention to the information.

Furthermore, according to the proposed class action lawsuit, Study.com also violated California consumer protection laws by “failing to provide an acknowledgement that describes a toll-free telephone number, electronic mail address, a postal address only when the seller directly bills the consumer, or another cost-effective, timely, and easy-to-use mechanism for cancellation.”

Lopez is proposing a class of “all persons within California that, within the applicable statute of limitations period, purchased any product or service in response to an offer constituting an ‘Automatic Renewal” as defined by [Section] 17601(a) from Study.com, LLC, its predecessors, or its affiliates.”

The lawsuit is asking for damages and full restitution in the amount of their subscription payment agreements, as well as injunctive relief and attorneys’ fees and costs.

Study.com is the latest in a slew of class action lawsuits over alleged deceptive subscription auto-renewal practices. Online cosmetics retailer, Birchbox settled a class action lawsuit in August, alleging it automatically renewed subscriber accounts without their authorization.

In November, after losing a bid to compel arbitration, Spotify must face a class action lawsuit in California federal court over claims the music streaming company charged consumers a monthly renewal rate after their trial period ended.

And just this month Guthy-Renker LLC, agreed to settle allegations it engaged in unfair practices about auto-renewal billing and delivery charges for its Proactiv skin care products for $15.2 million.

Lopez is represented by Scott J. Ferrell and Victoria C. Knowles of Pacific Trial Attorneys.

The Study.com Auto-Renewal Class Action Lawsuit is Matthew Lopez et al. v. Study.com LLC, et al., Case No. 37-2017-00006162-CU-MT-CTL in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of San Diego.