FTC Sues Amazon for Making It Difficult to Cancel Prime
- Agency says company enrolled shoppers in Prime without consent
- Lawsuit claims Prime practices violate consumer protection law
Amazon Prime trucks leave an Amazon fulfilment center in London.
Photographer: Dan Kitwood/Getty ImagesThe US Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon.com Inc. Wednesday, alleging the e-commerce giant duped consumers into signing up for its Prime membership service and deliberately made it hard to cancel.
The consumer protection agency filed a lawsuit in Washington state federal court claiming that Amazon’s website manipulates users into enrolling in Prime, where subscribers pay $139 a year for privileges like speedy free delivery, video streaming and access to 100 million songs. The cancellation process for Prime is also difficult to find and requires multiple steps, the FTC alleged. The agency said Amazon referred to the process internally as the Iliad, after Homer’s lengthy epic poem.