Drugstore.com Class Action Says Customers Charged Without Consent

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.

A proposed class action lawsuit has been filed against online product retailer Drugstore.com with allegations that the company charged consumer credit cards without their consent.

Plaintiff Kristyne Hanberg filed the lawsuit in California federal court over claims that Drugstore.com Inc. violated California’s Automatic Renewal Law and its Unfair Competition Law.

Hanberg states that Drugstore.com engaged in presenting automatic renewal or continuous service offers to consumers located throughout California but allegedly failed to present the offer terms in a clear and conspicuous manner and in close visual proximity to the consent of the offer before the purchasing agreement was fulfilled.

The proposed class action also claims that Drugstore.com charged consumers’ credit cards without obtaining prior affirmative consent to the agreement that contained the terms for automatic renewal or continuous service.

Hanberg states that she purchased a subscription plan from Drugstore.com, a Delaware based corporation that sells vitamin supplements and related drugstore products and also sells subscriptions for these products.

According to the lawsuit, this “Auto-Reorder & Save” subscription program is offered by Drugstore.com to consumers so they may select products for automatic delivery every 30, 60 or 90 days or more, and is considered an automatic renewal and/or continuous service plan or arrangement for legal purposes under California law.

The plaintiff alleges that the subscription program’s Terms of Use did not include any of the following in clear or conspicuous language:

i) The subscription or purchasing agreement will continue until the consumer cancels;
ii) Describes the cancellation policy that applies to the offer;
iii) Recurring charges that will be charged to the consumer’s Payment Method account with a third party as part of the automatic renewal plan or arrangement, and that the amount of the charge may change, if that is the case, and the amount to which the charge will change, if known; and
iv) The length of the automatic renewal term or that the service is continuous unless the length of tile term is chosen by the consumer.

The lawsuit further claims that “On the pages on the website where a prospective subscriber is invited to complete a purchase, the pages did not, and do not, contain automatic renewal offer terms or continuous service offer terms as defined by Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17601(b).”

The plaintiff seeks to represent a Class consisting 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 § 17601(a) from Drugstore.com, Inc., its predecessors, or its affiliates.”

On behalf of herself and others, Hanberg is seeking damages, restitution, declaratory relief, injunctive relief and reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs as allowed. The amount in controversy exceeds more than $5 million dollars.

The plaintiff is represented by Gillian L. Wade of Milstein, Adelman, Jackson, Fairchild & Wade and Scott J. Ferrell, Richard H. Hikida, David W. Reid and Victoria C. Knowles of Newport Trial Group.

The Drugstore.com Class Action Lawsuit is Kristyne Hanberg, et al. v. Drugstore.com, et al., Case No. 8:16-cv-00523, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.