eHarmony Sued by Australian Watchdog Group for False Advertising
Contributed by: kellyseal on Friday, September 29 2023 @ 11:16 am
Last modified on Friday, September 29 2023 @ 11:37 am
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has brought a lawsuit against dating app eHarmony, alleging the company misled consumers through false advertising. It also alleges that the company deceived its customers about pricing and renewing their subscriptions.
According to The Guardian, the lawsuit filed in Australian federal court alleges the company of “entrapping singles” by showing them only blurred photos of their matches and not allowing them to send messages without paying for a subscription. The lawsuit also accuses the company of luring customers to sign up by falsely advertising “free dating” on the platform, as well as short-term membership offers and early cancellation opportunities.
In reality, users opting for the “free service” completed an 80-question profile survey before they had access to look at potential matches. However, when users completed the questions, they were served blurry profile photos of other members, and were only able to send one message as a reply to a premium member. If they wanted to continue messaging, they were required to pay for the service.
The lawsuit also alleges that eHarmony tried to encourage users to sign up for six, twelve, or even twenty-four month memberships, even though these memberships all automatically renewed, according to The Guardian[*1] .
“The ACCC is concerned about the issue of subscription traps in digital services,” the commission’s chair, Gina Cass-Gottlieb said. “We remind digital platforms of the need to be clear with consumers about renewals and cancellations.”
eHarmony is not the first dating app to face such allegations about its subscription practices. In 2019, the U.S.’s FTC (Federal Trade Commission) sued Match Group for tricking thousands of customers into buying subscriptions despite 25 to 30 percent of its profile database being bots and scammers. The lawsuit alleged that from 2013 to 2016, more than half of the messaging taking place on its platforms, which include Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid and Plenty of Fish, were from accounts the company identified as fake. In fact, Match Group pushed messages to new users with photos and alerts that “a new message awaits” from accounts that were already flagged as bots.
The FTC claimed that Match Group didn’t just “turn a blind eye” to the problem of scammers, according to Tech Crunch, but they profited off of them.
The FTC lawsuit also alleges that once users had paid for a subscription, Match Group made it difficult to cancel with automatic renewals and a multi-step cancellation process that was confusing, making members think they canceled when they hadn’t. Match Group was ultimately ordered to pay $2 million in restitution.
The ACCC is also asking for eHarmony to pay penalties.
A spokesperson for eHarmony said they had cooperated with the investigation launched by the ACCC, and said the company “take our compliance obligations seriously,” but they couldn’t talk further about the matter.
The spokesperson also said, according to The Guardian: “We intend to fully respond to the ACCC’s allegations in court.”