Road Runner Loses Effort to have Class Action Challenging Auto-Renewals Tossed

For several years, consumers have been expressing their frustrations with Road Runner’s long practice of charging consumers annual “renewal fees” for VIP memberships.  A simple online search yields many online forums, including the Better Business Bureau and Yelp, filled with consumers who say they were shocked by “mysterious” charges for a Road Runner membership despite not having purchased anything from the retailer in years. Many consumers maintain that they “never” authorized a VIP membership to be charged to their payment card.  “This is straight up credit card fraud – I NEVER authorized this charge to be taken from my account,” one consumer writes on the Better Business Bureau website. “This company has been stealing money from it’s customers for years and continue to do so in spite of receiving numerous complaints.”  Other consumers complained that they could not even cancel the charges and Road Runner would just keep on charging their credit cards.

One consumer decided to challenge Road Runner’s conduct in court.  On May 26, 2020, she filed a class action lawsuit.  Not surprisingly, Road Runner denied it had done anything wrong and responded by attacking the plaintiff’s credibility, arguing she must have known about the auto-renewal charges.  The court disagreed and repeatedly found Road Runner’s arguments to “lack merit.”  As a result, the class action is moving ahead and the plaintiff will seek damages for all persons within California who purchased a Road Runner VIP Family Membership from Road Runner and who were charged a fee to renew their membership.  To join the class action or if you have information that might help, please visit https://www.roadrunnerviplawsuit.com/.