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Amazon is facing a lawsuit from the FTC over alleged deceptive practices with its Prime membership service. According to the lawsuit, Amazon had tricked customers into signing up for Amazon Prime memberships, then made it hard to cancel those memberships.
Amazon “sabotaged” their attempts to cancel, the lawsuit states. Noting that the process was intentionally designed to steer customers away from cancelling. The signup process is at the heart of the matter. The FTC alleges that customers were unknowingly signing up for a recurring Prime subscription. As Amazon made it a challenge to buy things without Prime, while failing to inform them that the buy button they were clicking to complete the transaction was also an agreement to the membership.
Amazon Prime has a monthly cost of $14.99 a month, although you can sign up for an annual subscription that carries a price tag of $139 instead. This saves you about $40 a year. For those prices, customers often get free two-day shipping on many different products. In addition to freebies from services like Prime Gaming, and thousands of movies and shows to stream through Prime Video.
The FTC has been investigating Amazon over Prime since 2021
While the FTC has just now filed the lawsuit against Amazon, the regulatory agency has been investigating the company over the alleged deceptive practices since 2021. The lawsuit states.
It also alleges that Amazon has done everything possible to prevent changes that would make the cancellation process simpler for customers. In some cases Amazon slowed changes that would aid consumers in cancelling their Prime membership if the company wasn’t able to stave them off, the lawsuit says.
This week’s Amazon Prime lawsuit from the FTC is merely one of a handful of the company’s legal worries. An earlier report states that the US senate is planning to investigate the company over its warehouse safety practices. It’s also facing a lawsuit over jointly inflating iPhone prices alongside Apple.