Increased subscription costs lead to class action lawsuit against Dazn

Streaming provider Dazn was once celebrated by soccer fans for its great value for money. But those days are long gone. The company has now lost its good relationship with its customers. The reason for this is a sharp rise in subscription prices. Now consumer advocates have reacted and filed a class action lawsuit.

Consumer advocates focus on Dazn pricing policy

Many streaming providers are currently being forced to increase their prices. This applies not only to video streaming provider Netflix (we reported), but also to music streaming king Spotify (we reported). It is therefore not surprising that Dazn has also had to increase the price of its subscription. However, the expert in streaming sporting events has not just done this now, when the operation of data centers has also become more expensive due to increased energy costs.

In fact, the company already raised its prices by a whopping 100 percent in January 2022. While customers still had to pay 14.99 euros per month, the price rose to 29.99 euros. One year later, the Federation of German Consumer Organizations (VZBV) already indicated that it would take action against this move by Dazn. Now it has happened. As the VZBV made public in a press release, it has now filed a class action lawsuit.

Difficult termination conditions

The aim of the class action is to ensure that the streaming provider’s customers get back the money they paid in excess. Ultimately, the clauses on the price increase were “unreasonably disadvantageous and non-transparent” in the view of the VZBV. “They are therefore invalid,” the association writes in its press release.

However, the VZBV then qualifies the point of attack of its accusation once again and emphasizes that it only concerns the increase in subscription prices in 2021 and 2022. This means that new customers cannot take part in the class action. However, anyone who was already an existing customer at the time is cordially invited to join the class action. The VZBV has set up a news alert to keep those affected up to date.

Unfortunately, the behavior surrounding the price adjustment is not the only accusation that consumer advocates have made against Dazn. In addition to unannounced price increases, customers were also annoyed by more difficult conditions for canceling subscriptions. One customer reported, for example, that it was not possible to cancel her subscription via online customer chat. This made it much more difficult to get out of a subscription that had suddenly become more expensive.

Prices continue to rise

Meanwhile, Dazn continues to tighten the price screw. If you want to subscribe to the full sports package, you have to opt for the “Unlimited” tariff. This costs at least 34.99 euros per month. If you only want to book the whole thing for one month, it’s even 44.99 euros.