Customers dissatisfied with Amazon Prime—the $14.99 monthly subscription service that includes free shipping and unlimited access to Amazon's streaming television service—must jump over an unreasonable number of hurdles to cancel their memberships, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleges.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday against Amazon, the FTC explains that consumers must click "a minimum of six times" to navigate from Amazon.com's main page through the entirety of the cancellation process. In the FTC's telling, this is a harrowing journey that requires users to navigate confusing options like "end membership" to, well, end their membership. One must also have the fortitude to endure a page in which Amazon tries to dissuade the cancellation with a reminder about the benefits of being a Prime member. This six-click process is deliberately difficult to navigate, the FTC claims, and is part of a "deceptive" scheme to lock consumers into their memberships.
