Amazon sued three executives for tricking buyers into becoming Prime members

Amazon sued three executives for tricking buyers into becoming Prime members

According to the Federal Trade Commission on September 20   Trade   According to the official website of the Federal Trade Commission , the FTC has added the names of three executives to its lawsuit against Amazon, accusing them of deceiving consumers into signing up for the Prime program without their knowledge for years and deliberately making it difficult to cancel the program.

The three executives are Neil Lindsay, Russell Grandinetti and Jamil Ghani. Neil Lindsay was the senior vice president of Prime business and is now a member of Amazon's leadership team; Russell Grandinetti is the senior vice president of Prime business; Jamil Ghani is the company vice president in charge of Prime subscription plan.

The amended indictment states that the three executives were fully aware of the problems with Prime because employees had reported these issues to them in emails, meetings, and work reports, and reminded and suggested that they make changes to avoid the company deceiving customers, but these executives chose to ignore the voices of employees. An internal Amazon memo in the indictment mentioned that Amazon believed that "clarifying" the registration process was not the "right thing to do" because it would affect the company's profits.

In addition, Amazon created a cancellation process for Prime called " Iliad ," which the FTC said was extremely complicated. Although Amazon made some changes to these processes under pressure from the FTC, the "Iliad" cancellation process has been in place for many years. The lawsuit also claims that Amazon and its leadership, including Lindsay, Grandinetti, and Ghani, refused to allow consumers to go through the new Iliad process in a simpler way for the sake of company performance.

The complaint also contains a wealth of new details and evidence of misconduct:

For example, an Amazon document mentioned that the company used the term "misleading" to refer to the company forcing non-Prime members to find an inconspicuous blue text link to make a purchase and setting up a more prominent option that says "free two-day shipping" but actually allows consumers to sign up for the Prime program.

The company also asked Amazon's customer service staff to direct users to the Iliad cancellation process if they are able to help them cancel their subscriptions.

The lawsuit also mentioned that Amazon also attempted to delay and obstruct the FTC's investigation into these issues, such as concealing and destroying evidence documents.

Amazon

Prime Membership

US FTC