Bespoke Post Facing Class Action Over Alleged Automatic Subscription Renewals

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A proposed class action lawsuit accuses Bespoke Post of unlawfully subscribing consumers to recurring paid programs and later charging them without consent when the subscription automatically renews.

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The 48-page lawsuit alleges that the lifestyle company, which curates and ships monthly boxes of branded cocktail kits, shave sets and other products, has violated California law by enrolling new subscribers in automatically renewing plans while failing to plainly stating their terms or cancellation policy, provide easy ways to cancel, and by subsequently charging consumers without their consent.

The suit charges that nabfly, Inc., who operates as Bespoke Post, has deliberately relied upon “consumer confusion” to retain customers and made it “next to impossible” to navigate its “exceedingly difficult” cancellation process.

By law, Bespoke Post must present consumers with the terms of a subscription that automatically renews, including a description of the cancellation policy, the duration of the renewal period and the recurring fee that will be charged to the subscriber’s credit or debit card, the case explains. As the complaint tells it, however, Bespoke Post’s online checkout page not only fails to disclose this information “clearly and conspicuously” as required but is “riddled” with “dark patterns”—tactics intended to confuse and prevent users from cancelling their subscriptions.

For one, a consumer may enroll in a “free trial” that automatically renews with a paid subscription at the conclusion of the trial period, yet the website’s checkout page does not clearly disclose the length of the free trial or the precise date when it will end, the case states. This allows the defendant to charge an unwitting subscriber before he or she realizes the free period is over, the lawsuit contends.

Further, the checkout page does not provide consumers a chance to review or consent to any auto-renewal terms before they’re enrolled in a program that results in monthly charges, the suit relays. Only a small checkbox is presented to users with the vague message “I agree - Let’s do this”—an inadequate request for authorization in the eyes of state law, the case says.

Similarly, the monthly fee consumers will be charged is not only “tucked away” in a far corner of the checkout page and undistinguished from other text but also ambiguous in itself, the complaint relays. Though a membership fee of $0 is listed on the page, beneath that is a statement that “[b]oxes that ship cost $49.00 (+$4.44 tax, and $4.95 shipping),” the filing reports. The lawsuit claims this is “intentionally misleading” because it is “unclear based on this language whether the consumer will be charged $0, $49.00, or $58.39 (the sum of all price terms appearing on the Checkout Page).”

What’s more, the defendant makes no distinction about the precise length of monthly renewal terms, the filing says. Subscribers are not informed about whether a “month” refers to a four-week period or a repetition of the exact date of their initial enrollment, the suit states.

Per the case, the California-based plaintiff signed up for a free trial with Bespoke Post in July 2019 and was unaware that the company had enrolled her in its monthly automatic renewal program. Roughly a month later, in August, the plaintiff’s subscription was renewed and her account charged the monthly fee of $53.56 without her authorization, the complaint alleges.

Seeking to cancel her subscription, the plaintiff reportedly “struggled immensely with the cancellation process” and “[found] no useful guidance in the vague and incomplete terms that were presented to her on the Checkout Page,” the filing says. Ultimately, the woman was required to call a customer service number and receive an email address to which she had to send a cancellation request, the suit says.

Bespoke Post has grown quickly, reportedly boasting more than 300,000 monthly subscribers, the case reports. However, its strong growth “coincides with a sharp decline in subscriber satisfaction,” the complaint claims. Indeed, the filing contends that the company’s methods are “carefully crafted to trick users,” and that its “complex cancellation procedures” are designed to “increase the friction in the subscription cancellation process.”

The lawsuit looks to represent anyone residing in California who incurred renewal fee(s) in connection with Bespoke Post’s offering for a paid subscription within the applicable statute of limitations period.

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