People Magazine Class Action Says Subscriptions Auto Renew

A class action lawsuit accuses Time Inc. and the Meredith Corporation of unlawfully automatically renewing People magazine subscriptions.

Plaintiff Linda Hall says that in 2017, she received an Instagram offer for a subscription to People magazine (published by Time) through the “magazine store,” (operated by Meredith). 

Allegedly, the offer included the option to purchase the subscription, and the checkout screen stated “All magazine subscriptions will automatically renew annually.”

The People magazine class action claims that there was no information presented on how a customer could accept or reject the auto-renewal.

Additionally, Hall says there wasn’t a prompt or feature on the screen to obtain the customer’s consent to automatically renew the subscription.

The Time class action alleges that Hall later received a postcard advertising People subscriptions which notified her that there are no renewal notifications and that the subscription would continue through the “open-ended, customer-friendly subscription method — automatic renewal.”

She says that the postcard also stated that the company will also send a courtesy reminder before the start of the new subscription term.

The People subscription class action lawsuit says that Time’s policy of automatically renewing magazine subscriptions violates California law which requires businesses with automatic renewal programs to obtain the purchaser’s affirmative consent to automatically renew the service.

Allegedly, Time never requested Hall’s affirmative consent to automatically renew her People subscription, but charged her for it. She says that she was financially injured because she had to pay for the auto-renewal even though she did not request it.

The People magazine class action states that both Time and the Meredith Corporation knew or should have known that this was illegal, but auto-renewed subscriptions for customers nonetheless.

Hall argues that this was done in an attempt to boost the companies’ profits at the expense of their subscribers.

The Time class action lawsuit asserts that Time and Meredith Corporation auto-renew subscriptions for all of their magazines without obtaining the customer’s consent.

Allegedly, the companies also failed to provide Hall and other customers the option to cancel the automatic renewal of their subscriptions online, and failed to provide the cancellation policy and information on how to cancel the subscription in a manner that customers are able to retain, as is required by law.

Hall is represented by Michael Trotter and David P. Pruett of Carroll Kelly Trotter Franzen McBride & Peabody.

The Time Magazine Automatic Subscription Renewal Class Action Lawsuit is Linda Hall v. Time Inc., et al., Case No. 8:19-cv-01153, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

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