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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
Charges applied to a card that I did not give them I have purchased from Amazon before but not prime thought I was viewing for free for thirty days but they I turn found my card number from a previous order way back in the summer and just applied it to that card without my permission causing my account to subjected to two 32.00 fees totalling 64.00 I was charged for starz I did not order and some av video for 8.99 I am calling my bank about the fraud also It is not a good look Amazon I will hesitate on ordering from them
Same for me. No notice
also experience a deduction out of my checking account for Amazon Prime without permission.
I have been a long time customer of Amazon and I can say definitively that Amazon does NOT just sign people up for Prime unless you ask for it either during checkout (free 2day shipping) or directly under the prime site. Unless you are an idiot and don’t bother to read while your checking out you can never be signed up for something you don’t want. I have never had a charge for Prime and I order all the time. Idiots deserve nothing in this lawsuit because they couldn’t be bothered to read things when they checked out.
Two weeks ago, I would have said the same thing. But in the last two weeks, they have attempted to charge my account 7 times for prime, each time I cancel the membership. I did not purchase anything, try to rent a movie, download a song, or anything that would trigger a prime subscription. Ive changed my password, ensured that the PIN was in place that you should have to enter to rent a movie, and have now deleted all credit cards from my account, so at least it wont be charged again. Still not resolved. Amazon needs to address this issue, and make it much more transparent when a charge will be made to your account.
I agree, I’ve ordered literally HUNDREDS of items from Amazon and never once have i been charged a prime membership. I notice that a lot of people are illiterate which is evident by the poor grammar in their reviews. Most of them can’t even get it right with speelcheck! (That was a pun, btw). Learn to read people!
Don’t assume you know. I have not ordered, rented movies purchashed anything ect and cancelled my account several times. Now they have tried 5 times to take the 99.00 plus dollars. I have called, emailed and every time they tell me it WILL NOT happen again and boom 3 days later it does.
That is all fine well and good BUT WHEN YOU CANCEL THEY SHOULD NOT TRY 5 MORE TIMES TO TAKE THE MONEY!
The case is still moving through the courts and has not yet reached a settlement. Claim forms are usually not made available to consumers until after a court approved settlement is reached. We recommend you sign up for a free account at TopClassActions.com and follow the case. We will update the article with any major case developments or settlement news! Setting up a free account with Top Class Actions will allow you to receive instant updates on ANY article that you ‘Follow’ on our website. A link to creating an account may be found here: https://topclassactions.com/signup/. You can then ‘Follow’ the article above, and get notified immediately when we post updates!
You can also contact class counsel with any questions or inquires about the case. Current counsel is listed at the bottom of the article and can be Googled for contact information. We wish you the best of luck in your pursuit of justice!
I to haf the samr thing happen to me the several times. The first time I asked paypal revoke charges but paypal talked me out of that telling mr about how great the membership was. That charge was 39.99 a few months later i see the charge again so i call paypal and ask the to stop payment they do yet the very same day allow two more charges of 107 i desputed and paypal let them hit is one more time of 107 i lost my cool when i was told it might be 30 dayd before my money could be replaced in my account. Just dirty and paypal is in it with them as well.
They did this to me as well. I signed up for a 30 day trial and they sent something saying that my card didn’t go through, so I called and said that my card shouldn’t need to go through if it’s free and he said they need a card to charge $1 to make sure it’s an active account and they would then refund the dollar. I asked if I would have 30 days to decide and he said yes and that they would notify me before charging me and they charged me right away.
I do not have Amazon Prime, nor did I want it. I just got off the phone with Amazon who charged me 105.93 for a Membership I did not apply for. All I did was purchase three gifts for my friends in December. I did not know that they would upgrade me to a Prime Membership.
I posted Amazons reply above
They did the same to me. Send me a notice that prime was 99.00 yet unpon reading my new credit card statement find that 106.18 was charged for Amazon prime membership. I called Amazon immediately and they said it was tax. I asked them to remove it and said that they could not remove the 7.18 because I was in a taxable state. I called twice and got supervisor. He would not remove it either. I said it was false advertising… they sent me notice it was 99.00 yet then charged 106.71 without my knowledge. Many people probably didnt even see the different charge on their credit cards… what a sneaky way to do business.Can you imagine the millions of people who were deceived by this? AND to top it off– they advertise prime membership for 73.00 to new members. This offer was less than 2 weeks after my renewal.
I have a Amazon Prime Membership account; I didnt receive a notice. How do I file a claim?