Customers of the Sports streaming services Dazn can under certain circumstances hope for a refund of overpaid subscription fees. The Hamm Higher Regional Court made it clear in an oral hearing on Friday that it The provider’s price increases in 2021 and 2022 are “non-transparent and inappropriate” hold, as the court announced.
The Federal Association of Consumer Organizations (vzbv) now sees good chances of repayment. Injured consumers have until September 25th to join the class action lawsuit. (Af. I-12 VKl 1/24)
The consumer advocates accuse Dazn of increasing the prices of current contracts to have increased unilaterally twice without the customers having agreed to this. As of August 2021, Dazn charged 14.99 euros instead of 11.99 euros per month. In August 2022, the subscription price doubled to 29.99 euros. The company pointed to a clause in the contract terms that allowed price adjustments under certain conditions.
“The court made it clear during the hearing that it considers Dazn’s unilateral price increases in 2021 and 2022 to be ineffective,” explained Sebastian Reiling from vzbv. “Affected people can therefore hope for repayments. What is crucial now is that those who were affected by the price increases should not wait any longer. Only those who register by September 25th at the latest can benefit from the class action lawsuit.“
The court emphasized that a final decision had not yet been made. It plans to announce the verdict on November 18th.