Juice Plus+ Class Action Alleges Auto Renewal Scam

A California woman says she was tricked into buying a monthly subscription for Juice Plus+ supplements.

Lead plaintiff Christine Lunsford alleges in a class action lawsuit that The Juice Plus+ Company LLC and Natural Alternatives International Inc. failed to make the terms of their automatically renewing subscription clear to consumers when they made purchases online.

The Juice Plus+ class action lawsuit claims that the companies violated California automatic renewal laws requiring the terms of such agreements, including cancellation, to be clear and conspicuous.

Lunsford says she purchased some Juice Plus+ supplements using her credit card on JuicePlus.com on Aug. 20, 2019. She received the order and was billed for the supplements. However, she says she received a second order the next month and was billed again. Again, the next month, Lunsford says her credit card was charged by Juice Plus+ and she received yet another order of the supplements.

“From August 2019 through the present, Juice Plus has continually delivered the Products to Plaintiff on a monthly basis,” states the Juice Plus+ class action lawsuit. “Because the ‘automatic renewal offer terms’…were not properly disclosed Plaintiff did not understand the frequency at which she would continue to be charged $71.25. As a result of Defendants not properly displaying the [automatic renewal offer terms] at the time of purchase, or providing the [automatic renewal offer terms] in subsequent emails, Plaintiff, unbeknownst to her, incurred at least three (3) monthly charges of $71.25 for Products she did not wish to receive.”

According to the complaint, Juice Plus+’s website does not include any section properly describing the automatic renewal offer terms as required under California law. Lunsford says that a website expert reviewed the site and found only one sentence describing how consumers could cancel the automatic renewal service.

“This small amount of information, insufficient to constitute a properly [automatic renewal offer terms], is not clearly and conspicuously disclosed because this page can only be accessed via a hyperlink labeled as ‘Return Policy’ which leads to a section titled ‘Satisfaction Guaranteed’ located at a footer on the home page of www.juiceplus.com, and which is not apparent until a user scrolls past the fold of the webpage,” alleges the Juice Plus+ class action lawsuit.

Further, Lunsford claims that she and other consumers were not presented with a clear and conspicuous disclosure of the fact that they would be entered into an automatic renewal agreement when they made purchases at JuicePlus.com.

The Juice Plus+ class action lawsuit alleges that California law requires companies to obtain “affirmative consent” prior to entering consumers into an automatic renewal agreement. Juice Plus+ fails to do so, says the plaintiff.

“At checkout, www.juiceplus.com provides only for a button that states ‘Purchase’ without any presentation of the [automatic renewal offer terms] or any language referencing the same,” contends the Juice Plus+ class action lawsuit.

“www.juiceplus.com fails to provide any check-box or similar mechanism to indicate that the consumer has read, understood and has affirmatively consented to any [automatic renewal offer terms]. In fact, no reference to any AROT is made on the checkout page of the website at all.”

The plaintiff seeks to represent other Californians who were duped into the alleged Juice Plus+ auto renewal scheme.

The Juice Plus+ class action lawsuit was originally filed in California state court and has since been removed to federal court.

Were you entered into the Juice Plus+ auto renewal program without realizing it? Tell your story below!

The plaintiff is represented by Evan J. Smith and Ryan P. Cardona of Brodsky & Smith LLC.

The Juice Plus+ Automatic Subscription Renewal Class Action Lawsuit is Lunsford v. The Juice Plus+ Company LLC, et al., Case No. 2:20-cv-00012, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

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