An order button must clearly indicate that clicking on the button triggers an order that requires payment. “Pay with credit card” and similar formulations, which can also refer to the choice of payment method, are not permitted. This was decided by the Hildesheim regional court following a lawsuit brought by the Federal Association of Consumer Organizations (vzbv) against Digistore24 GmbH. The court also prohibited the company from offering subscriptions without providing sufficient information about their total price, duration and cancellation conditions.

The defendant company operates an online platform on which books, seminars and the like are sold. In order to order a specific product, users first had to enter their address details and choose between different payment options under the “Payment options” section. When making the selection, a green button was displayed which, depending on the payment method chosen, contained, for example, the label “Pay with credit card” or “Pay with SOFORT transfer”. By clicking on the button, customers not only confirmed the chosen payment method, but also placed the binding, chargeable order.

Order button was not clearly labeled

The LG Hildesheim agreed with the vzbv's opinion that the labeling was unlawful. According to the legal regulation, an order button may not be labeled with anything other than the words “order with obligation to pay” or with a corresponding clear wording. “Pay with credit card” and similar formulations are not clear in the specific design of the ordering process. They could also be understood by consumers to mean that by clicking on the button they are simply confirming the payment method they have previously chosen and are not thereby triggering a binding order.

Insufficient information about subscriptions

The court also prohibited the company from offering subscriptions on its sales platform without providing sufficient information about the essential contractual conditions such as the price, duration and termination conditions.

In the case of the dispute, Digistore24 offered a video subscription as an “upgrade” to a selected product. However, customers did not receive the core information about the contract immediately before placing their order, as required by law. Instead, the information was located far away from the order button at the top of the page, before the first step of the ordering process. Consumers would have had to scroll back up to get to the information. The court was therefore convinced that they were not directly related to the binding order either in terms of time or location.

Also read: AI-generated online reviews: detecting fakes and protecting consumers

Source:

VZVB


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