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Amazon faces a putative class action lawsuit filed by a former customer who claims the e-commerce retailer automatically charged his bank account for a Prime premium membership without his consent.
Plaintiff Gregory Harris of California alleges that he purchased products on amazon.com and was informed that he would only be charged for those items. However, Harris claims that his account was upgraded to the premium membership Amazon Prime without his permission.
The Amazon class action lawsuit states that Harris was charged $107.91 for the Prime membership which was automatically taken out of his bank account. Although he canceled the membership after one withdrawal of $107, Harris alleges that Amazon would have continued to take unauthorized, reoccurring payments from his account had they not been stopped.
According to the Amazon Prime class action lawsuit, this is a “common scheme” of the internet retailer used to mislead and entice customers into making purchases from amazon.com, while customers are actually being charged more than what is represented. Harris claims that had Amazon properly represented the hidden fee, he would not have bought products on the website.
The Amazon false advertising class action lawsuit states that Amazon failed to take reasonable steps to inform Harris that he would be charged for a premium membership.
The plaintiff claims that Amazon failed to provide an opportunity for consumers to read and review the accurate conditions of the purchase prior to buying the items: “As such, defendant took advantage of defendant’s position of perceived power in order to deceive plaintiff and the class members to use its services.”
Harris states that the Amazon membership fee violates California’s False Advertising Act which makes it illegal to engage in advertising “which is untrue or misleading and which is known, or which by the exercise of reasonable care should be known, to be untrue or misleading…”
The Amazon Prime membership class action lawsuit also claims that the company violated the federal Electronic Funds Transfer Act which states that a “preauthorized electronic fund transfer from a consumer’s account may be authorized by the consumer only in writing, and a copy of such authorization shall be provided to the consumer when made.”
If approved, the Amazon class action lawsuit would be open to all U.S. consumers who purchased products from amazon.com and were charged an additional membership fee. Harris is also hoping to represent a subclass of U.S. Class Members whose bank accounts were debited on a reoccurring basis by Amazon without obtaining a written authorization signed or similarly authenticated for preauthorized electronic fund transfers within the past year.
Another recently filed Amazon class action lawsuit regarding Amazon’s list price was dismissed in October 2015 by a California federal court. Plaintiffs Andrea Fagerstrom and Allen Wiseley, claimed that Amazon misrepresented competitive pricing by only selecting the highest price it could find for a particular item. According to the court, the plaintiffs accepted the terms of Amazon’s arbitration agreement at the time they made their online purchase therefore the case was dismissed.
Harris is represented by Todd M. Friedman and Adrian R. Bacon of The Law Offices of Todd M. Friedman PC.
The Amazon Prime False Advertising Class Action Lawsuit is Gregory Harris, et al. v. Amazon.com LLC, Case No. BC606984 in the Superior Court of California For the County of Los Angeles.
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165 thoughts onAmazon Faces Prime Membership Class Action Lawsuit
Ive been harged prime membership on 2 separate credit cards each month. I signed up for the chase card and they called me personally to verify. Amazon prime card automatically signed me up amd has been billing me a double time…I never consented to that card or the membership. How can I join this suit?
Charged*
I have been a prime member for a few years. I was billed for the annual fee on July 31. Today, my credit card was billed $12.99 for amazon prime. I called amazon and they could provide no details other than it was not for my account. Really? Amazon can not (or will not) provide me with any information about an amazon prime membership paid with my credit card. Way to protect the criminals and/or cya. Since amazon refuses to give me any information about this prime membership paid with my credit card, I had to cancel my credit card.
What is the status of the case?
Can I still join?
I realize that Amazom was charging me for
One day PURCHASE AUTHORIZED ON 04/04 Amazon Digital Svc AMZN.COM/bill WA S308095107533257 CARD 4708 $4.54
I immediately call the bank, but they continue, then they stop
And another time, they charged me for 2 orders I just got one, you have to be very careful. If you do not watch your account they take money left and right
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I’ve had charges to my debt card that I had no clue what it was for. I gave no permission to anything. Totalling 34 charges causing me overdrafts in the amount of $850 dollars in overdrafts. I’m struggling financially the way it is, having to go to food pantries the way it is. I sure in the hell don’t need these charges on top of everything else.
Charged a reoccurring monthly fee of $12.99 today after purchasing so items as I normally do for over a year! Was able to cancel the reoccurring part, but not the first charge.. False advertising. Jeff is this how you made so much money and surpassed all the billionaires? I will go back to using EBay. Gonna miss the 1 and 2 day shipping though. Bye amazon.
Today I received an email asking me to “review” my Amazon Prime membership fee. I was confused as I had never signed up for Amazon Prime and had no reason to do so – my wife has a Prime membership and any time I need to make an Amazon purchase using Prime, we do so through her account. But lo and behold, Prime had been activated as of October 2017, despite me not having made any purchases between August and December on my account.
I’ve been an eBay buyer and seller since 2002, an Etsy seller since 2010, and have been coding HTML and Javascript and building my home PCs for decades. I’m not technologically illiterate when it comes to accepting services, and I know I did not explicitly or implicitly give Amazon consent to start a Prime membership for which I had less than zero use. There are too many stories of similar things happening here for me to not believe that Amazon is doing something underhanded when it comes to its subscription service.
I was just charged 12.99 for a monthly membership today after making a few purchases. I had no idea I was signing up for prime. Didn’t appear to inform me and I didn’t consent to start a prime membership. I’ve been buying stuff just fine from amazon for over a year. I was able to cancel the reoccurring monthly payment, but I was still charge for this month (march 22nd to April 22)
Amazon.ca here I Canada, without my consent charged my credit card $89.27 CDN for Prime Membership. This is outrageous! I called my Visa to complain, to no avail. Visa told me even if I change my credit card number, Amazon can make further charges to this new number. Unbelievable! I cancelled by Visa credit card. I can’t find a phone number or email to complain to Amazon.
Just google “amazon contact number”. I call them all the time to complain when I see incorrect charges on my account.
While placing an order 2 day shipping came up. I said no prime and went to complete my order. Order was almost complete and I see a “my prime” instead of “try prime” by the top of the screen. I was livid. They charged my card 99 from a prev order in early 2017 without my permission. This isILLEGAL AS HELL. WHAT IS GOING ON????? So now I am boycotting this sneaky lying illegal company. Don’t want or need prime as another household member has it already. CROOKED!
Amazon has been charging us monthly since June 2017 for digital subscriptions for HBO NOW and Filmstruck. They said they were in-app subscriptions, but both apps refer us to their App Store to manage subscriptions. When we check our digital subscriptions in our accounts, it said we have no digital subscriptions. It also says in our Channel subscriptions that we have none. We long assumed these were cancelled and didn’t receive any emails or notification that these charges were happening. Beware.