Ryze has been sued twice over auto-renewal

Ryze took functional mushroom coffee, a category that barely existed in mainstream DTC a few years ago, and turned it into one of the most recognizable names in the adaptogen-beverage space. For a brand that grows through viral social content, legal exposure tends to grow at the same pace. Ryze has already found that out once before.

The first case was moved to federal court and voluntarily dismissed shortly after: no ruling, no visible settlement. But moving a case federally isn't free: retaining counsel and preparing a notice of removal costs real money even when a case never reaches trial.

The current case

Beltran v. Ryze lists the same core ARL violations we keep seeing. Two details are worth adding. First, Beltran's attorney also filed Hoke v. AG1 just four months earlier, part of a pattern where a small number of plaintiff firms file the majority of ARL cases, often using similar strategies against different defendants.

Second, Ryze's Better Business Bureau profile shows a real compliance gap: of 918 complaints received over three years, the vast majority concern subscription enrollment or cancellation: customers describing a broken "manage your subscription" portal with no phone number to reach a human when it fails. That's not from the lawsuit's pleadings. It's from actual customers.

“When complaint patterns like this go unaddressed, lawsuits become inevitable. It's not a matter of if, but when.”

Isn't ARL a federal law?

No, and this mix-up comes up constantly. The federal law is ROSCA, enforced by the FTC, and it sets a relatively low bar. California's ARL goes considerably further on disclosure, consent, and cancellation, and its 2025 amendments widened that gap with the "click to cancel" requirement under §17602(d)(1). A brand that clears a basic ROSCA check can still lose under the ARL.

Why a checkout defect turns into an expensive lawsuit

The ARL itself has no private right of action. Every claim gets routed through the Unfair Competition Law and the Consumers Legal Remedies Act, which is what actually provides damages and fee-shifting. Jurisdiction doesn't require a large share of sales from California either: generating meaningful revenue from Californians is enough contact to be sued there, regardless of where a company is headquartered.

The UCL allows restitution of every dollar collected from class members while a violation was live, and the CLRA adds damages on top, with attorneys' fees shifted onto the defendant if the plaintiff wins. Neither number is capped per customer. Both get multiplied by the entire class.

The recurring-defect checklist

• 1Renewal-term disclosure language that doesn't clearly describe the auto-ship enrollment, recurring charge, and any price changes after the first purchase
• 2A cancellation path that redirects to "pause" or "skip" instead of a simple, one-step cancel
• 3No documented internal process for re-testing the cancellation flow after site, app, or offer changes