On 13 January 2026, the FTC announced a lawsuit against JustAnswer, an online platform connecting consumers with professionals for paid question-and-answer sessions, and its CEO, alleging violations of the Restore Online Shopper's Confidence Act (ROSCA) tied to the company's subscription billing and cancellation practices.DOCUMENTED
- The FTC's suit names both JustAnswer as a corporate entity and its CEO individually — a structure that, as in several other cases covered on this site, typically signals the agency views the alleged practices as directed at the leadership level rather than as lower-level operational missteps.
- The lawsuit was announced roughly two weeks before the FTC separately announced it was taking a preliminary step toward a new nationwide rulemaking on subscription cancellation practices generally.
- The timing places this case among a dense cluster of subscription-related FTC actions in the same several-month window, including the Shutterstock, Chegg, Instacart, and Uber cases covered elsewhere on this site.
A platform built on a specific trust proposition
JustAnswer's core business proposition — connecting a consumer with a verified professional (a doctor, lawyer, mechanic, or veterinarian, among other categories) for a quick paid consultation — depends heavily on consumer trust that the billing for that consultation will be straightforward and limited to the specific question asked. A subscription or recurring-billing structure that consumers did not clearly understand they were agreeing to sits in some tension with that trust proposition, since a consumer seeking a single quick answer to a specific question is a different customer than one knowingly signing up for an ongoing paid membership.REVIEWED
One case in a densely clustered enforcement period
The FTC's willingness to bring this case in the same general window as its actions against Shutterstock, Chegg, and Uber, and immediately ahead of a formal rulemaking effort, suggests the agency was building a substantial enforcement record across a range of subscription-based industries at the same time it moved to establish clearer, generally applicable rules — using individual enforcement actions and rulemaking as complementary, simultaneous strategies rather than treating one as a substitute for the other.
Sources behind this report
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