06/21/2023

New FTC Suits Alleges Amazon ‘Tricked’ Customers Into Paying for Prime

The FTC is pursuing the e-commerce giant over ‘dark patterns’

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a lawsuit against Amazon on Wednesday alleging that the company tricked millions of customers into enrolling in Prime, its membership program that offers customers fast deliveries as well as access to other Amazon services like streaming TV and music.

The FTC, which has been pursuing other companies over “dark patterns” that it says intentionally confuse customers, says Amazon “used manipulative, coercive, or deceptive” tactics to confuse customers into signing up, and then made it difficult for them to cancel their memberships. The purpose of Amazon’s Prime cancellation process was to make it harder — not easier — for customers to cancel their Prime accounts, the FTC said.

“Amazon tricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions without their consent, not only frustrating users but also costing them significant money,” said FTC Chair Lina Khan in a news release. “These manipulative tactics harm consumers and law-abiding businesses alike.”

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.