WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Communications company Vonage has agreed to pay $100 million to settle a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lawsuit that alleged it failed to provide an easy way for customers to cancel phone service, according to court documents filed on Thursday.
Vonage, which was acquired by Ericsson earlier this year in a $6.2 billion deal, created barriers to deter and prevent customers from stopping recurring payments, the FTC said in a lawsuit and proposed settlement in the U.S. District Court of New Jersey .
Neither Vonage nor Ericsson immediately responded to a request for comment.
“Since at least 2015, Vonage has not provided an easy way for customers to cancel their phone service using a variety of barriers sometimes called
“dark patterns” that are put together to deter and prevent customers from stopping recurring charges,” the FTC complaint said. “Even when customers were able to navigate Vonage’s process and contact a live agent and cancel their accounts, in many cases Vonage continued to charge them without consent.”
In addition to the financial settlement, the company agreed to provide clear information about any recurring payments and to offer an easy way to stop any recurring payments or avoid increased payments, according to the court document.
It also requires that if a consumer signs up for service over the phone or through a mobile phone app, use the same method to cancel the service, the document said.
(Reporting by David Shepardson and Diana Bartz)
