Illegal price rise means Prime Video users in Germany can claim refund

Amazon Prime Video users in Germany should soon be able to claim a refund for subscription prices which the US company illegally increased, according to multiple German courts. Around 20 million people in Germany have an Amazon Prime Video subscription.

Amazon Prime Video price rise was illegal

Multiple German courts have ruled that Amazon Prime Video subscribers did not explicitly agree to continuing their contract under new terms before the US company introduced price rises in September 2022. This means the price rises were illegal.

The Regional Court in Munich was the first to rule the Amazon price rise illegal. Amazon challenged the ruling, but it was upheld in the Upper Regional Court in Düsseldorf. The company is appealing the ruling in the Federal Court of Justice, but since courts have upheld the ruling until now, Amazon is widely expected to lose the appeal.

It may be one or two years before the Federal Court issues a final ruling, but this means users may also be able to claim interest on their arrears (more on that below). In the meantime, affected customers can register for the Amazon price class action lawsuit, which will strengthen the case against Amazon and should simplify the claims process if the ruling is upheld.

You are entitled to a refund if you signed up for an Amazon Prime Video subscription, including a discounted subscription for students, before late July 2022. You can claim the refund even if you only paid the higher prices for one month and then cancelled your subscription. 

If you had an annual subscription you can expect a refund of 62,70 euros. If you had a monthly subscription you can expect a refund of around 40 euros. The amount you receive will depend on which subscription you had and how long you had it for, but you don’t need to calculate the refund amount yourself.

How can I claim my Amazon Prime Video refund?

If you would like to register for the Amazon price class action lawsuit and claim your refund, you need to fill out this short form on the Federal Office of Justice website. 

First, you must declare whether your Amazon Prime Video account was a personal consumer account (Verbraucherin / Verbraucher) or a business account (Unternehmer). You must give your name or the name of your company.

You only need to fill out the parts of the form which are relevant to you. For example, if you are making the claim yourself and don’t have a lawyer representing you, you can skip the section “IV. Vertretung”. 

The section “V. Angaben zur Verbandsklage” is filled out automatically and references the relevant court and case. The section “VI. Gegenstand und Grund des geltend gemachten Anspruchs oder des Rechtsverhältnisses” is where you need to give information about your case.

The German consumer organisation Stiftung Warentest has created a template text which claimants can paste into section VI and edit to include their personal details. Below is an edited version of the text in German with information in English about which personal information to add.

“Ich habe vor vielen Jahren ein [here add the kind of subscription you had e.g. Prime-Abo/Prime-Student-Abo] bei Amazon abgeschlossen. Der Preis fürs Prime-Abo lag damals bei [here add the monthly or annual subscription cost you initially paid e.g. 7,99 Euro pro Monat/69 Euro pro Jahr].

Amazon kassiert von mir inzwischen [here add how much Amazon charged you after the price rise e.g. 8,99 Euro pro Monat/89,90 Euro pro Jahr]. 

Für die Anmeldung benutze ich die E-Mail-Adresse [here add the email address which was connected to your Amazon Prime Video subscription]. 

Ich halte die Preis­erhöhung ohne meine Zustimmung für rechts­widrig und fordere Erstattung rechts­widriger Zahlungen, soweit sie auf diese Preis­erhöhung entfallen.”

You can leave the section “VII. Angaben zur Höhe des Anspruchs” blank; you do not need to calculate how much Amazon owes you.

Finally, to submit the form, you must accept the data protection terms and conditions and declare that all the information you have given is true.

Stiftung Warentest encourages customers to claim interest

Because Amazon Prime Video customers might be waiting a while for the Federal Court to issue a final ruling, they can also claim 6,27 percent interest on arrears (the extra subscription money they paid)

To claim this interest, you must demand reimbursement from Amazon, which takes a little extra admin. Stiftung Warentest has created a sample letter which users can fill out and post to make the extra claim.