Following claims that the sports streaming service had broken California law, DAZN may be subject to a class action lawsuit. A complaint has been filed against the over-the-top sports streaming service, according to ClassAction.org, claiming that they failed to provide the necessary disclosure prior to renewing some memberships.
The plaintiff in the 32-page case, filed earlier this month, is Riverside, California’s Kyle McNair-Robinson. The lawsuit makes the following claims:
Defendant enrolls customers in a program that automatically renews their DAZN Subscription on a monthly or annual basis and results in monthly or annual charges to customers’ credit card, debit card, or third-party payment account (collectively, Payment Method) when customers sign up for a DAZN Subscription to gain access to a live stream through the DAZN Website. In doing so, the defendant disregards the necessary notices and consents that Californian consumers are entitled to receive under the state’s Automatic Renewal Law.
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Businesses must be more upfront with customers when a membership is up for renewal under California’s Automatic Renewal Law (ARL) before collecting money. According to the lawsuit, DAZN breached the ARL in three ways:
By neglecting to provide the parameters of the automatic renewal offer in a visible and noticeable way, close to the request for approval, prior to the fulfillment of the subscription or purchase agreement
charged clients without first getting their approval for the contract that included the period of the automatic renewal offer
neglected to send a cancellation policy, terms of the automatic renewal offer, and instructions on how to cancel in a way that allows the customer to keep the confirmation.
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It was revealed last year that DAZN was thinking of raising an additional $1 billion to speed up its plans to expand internationally. As the DAZN Website and related marketing have become rife with dark patterns, the lawsuit claims that although DAZN’s revenue and subscriber base have increased, this “coincides with a sharp decline in customers’ satisfaction.”
The complaint states, among other dark trends, that DAZN’s website “purposefully uses sneaky sales tactics to lock customers into one-year contracts.” The lawsuit claims that these strategies have caused customers to inadvertently or unintentionally renew their automatic subscriptions, which has boosted DAZN’s earnings and expansion. Additionally, according to the lawsuit, DAZN “furthermore violates the ARL by making it exceedingly difficult and unnecessarily confusing for consumers to cancel their DAZN Subscriptions.”
“Any persons in California who, within the applicable statute of limitations period, up to and including the date of final judgment in this action, incurred renewal fee(s) in connection with Defendant’s DAZN Subscription offerings” are the target audience for the McNair-Robinson complaint.
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