Sept. 22 (UPI) — A jury will decide if Amazon tricked its customers into signing up for Prime and made it difficult to cancel the subscription service.
The federal trial is scheduled to begin this week in Seattle.
In 2023, the Federal Trade Commission filed suit against the online sales giant claiming that Amazon tricked tens of millions of people into signing up for Prime, then made it hard for those customers to cancel the service.
“Amazon was aware for years that it was taking consumers’ money without their consent, yet chose to do nothing about it,” the FTC wrote in a filing.
“Specifically, Amazon used manipulative, coercive, or deceptive user-interface designs known as ‘dark patterns’ to trick consumers into enrolling in automatically renewing Prime subscriptions,” the complaint said.
Amazon denies the claims.
“The way Amazon drives Prime subscribers is by making the service useful and valuable,” Mark Blafkin, an Amazon spokesman, said in a statement. “And our approach works — Prime, with hundreds of millions of members, is among the highest performing subscription programs of any kind, as measured by renewal rates and customer satisfaction.”
While the suit was filed under the President Joe Biden administration, the current administration is keeping up the claim.
“The Trump-Vance FTC intends to secure justice for Americans harmed by Amazon’s practices,” Joe Simonson, an FTC spokesperson, said in a statement. “We’re looking forward to the trial.”
Jury selection is expected to begin Monday, and opening arguments are set to begin Tuesday.
The complaint alleges that since 2016 Amazon maintained a long, multi-step cancellation process it internally called “Iliad Flow,” named after “Homer’s epic about the long, arduous Trojan War.” Other than contacting customer service, Amazon offered no other way for consumers to cancel, apart from going through the Iliad process, the FTC said.
The FTC alleged that going through the Iliad Flow required customers to “navigate a four-page, six-click, 15-option cancellation process” that contained many off-ramps, including warnings about missing out on benefits, promotional discounts and offers on deals, intended to derail the customer.
But Amazon made it so consumers could sign up for Prime in just two clicks, the FTC said. It often buried specifics about recurring bills in fine print, the FTC alleged.
Amazon has made changes: It now has a cancellation page that describes customers’ options on whether to end or pause their Prime memberships.
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