- Surfshark was struck by a collective appeal on “illegal” automatic renewal costs
- A Californian client accused Surfshark of automatically registering him in renewal without his consent
- The most popular VPN suppliers use Automatic renewal systems – A practice lawyer alleys against California consumer law
A Californian client has dragged Surfshark in court, accusing the VPN supplier of having accused him of “illegal” automatic renewal costs.
The applicant Arvin Garcia filed a collective appeal against Surfshark before the California Central District Court on July 17, arguing that the company VPN has registered him for three year -long plan renewals without his consent. Garcia presented the case for itself and all other California consumers who have been accused of illegal automatic renewal costs.
Despite a handful of exceptions, the majority of the best VPNs on the market operate their subscriptions according to similar self-renewable systems. Two other suppliers, NordVPN and ExpressVPN, are in fact faced with complaints similar to the United States at the moment.
Did Surfshark violate California’s law?
As indicated in the trial, Garcia bought a two -year subscription to the service of the virtual private network (VPN) in May 2020, believing that he was making a single purchase.
However, after the expiration of the plan, “without his knowledge of him and without his consent, Surfshark registered him for an automatic renewal plan”, reads the costume.
Surfshark would have accused Garcia of annual renewals in May 2022, 2023 and 2024 – automatic accusations which, according to the lawyer’s lawyers, “were illegal and had to be reimbursed”.
More specifically, lawyers argue that Surfshark is in violation of its obligations under the California automatic renewal law (ARL). The law obliges companies to adopt automatic renewal payments to provide “clear and visible” disclosure on the automatic renewal plan and obtain “affirmative consent” to register consumers. Surfshark, according to the trial, violated these terms in “several ways”.
Surfshark is also accused of having violated the false advertising law “by disseminating misleading advertisements concerning the automatically renewed nature of surfhark plans,” wrote lawyers.
This July 2025 trial followed similar accusations against Surfshark in 2024, still under Californian law.
Techradar has approached jaghark for comments, but we are still waiting for an answer at the time of publication.
Should the AX AX AX renewal plans?
Surfshark is far from the leading popular VPN supplier to deal with legal problems in the United States for allegedly deceived automatic prices.
ExpressVPN also faces a collective appeal in California in fact, in fact, after being struck by a similar legal complaint in June 2025.
While NordVPN has been brought to justice for alleged “illegal and deceptive” self-renewal practices in at least four US states so far.
The law firm Palikovic Wittels Mcinturff has presented legal complaints on behalf of four former NordVPN customers since April 2024 – and now has been urging to all NordVPN users who were billed for a subscription that they did not want to appear.
The same law firm previously opened surveys on self-registration registration practices against ExpressVPN, alongside Proton VPN and private Internet access (PIA). However, lawyers did not have any prosecution against these providers.
We must wait to see what the judges will eventually decide, but these legal actions clearly point out that a change in the way VPN companies manage their payment subscriptions may be necessary. The question is now whether suppliers are ready to modify their business model and abandon the automatic renewal plans.
