Man demands $45 refund for a dating app subscription after a bug prevents him from canceling, his refund is refused so he leads a class action lawsuit that drains company of $23M

Author image for Lana DeGaetano
Lana DeGaetano • "Show me to me please."
Oct 5, 2024 1:00 PM EDT

Why is it, that signing up for a subscription is so much easier than canceling it? It's a money-grab tactic practiced by big corporations, where they are in most cases legally protected from folks demanding refunds left and right because they didn't read the fine print. Another tactic is giving consumers a free trial for a week, then failing to remind them that they're about to be billed X amount of dollars for the month or year. It's a headache and a half, especially when they revoke their subscription-tier services if you cancel before the trial period is up. What about certain corporations that have bugs in their apps that aren't fixed yet?

The original poster of this story had a friend who purchased a subscription on a dating app. After about a week, his friend was unable to cancel the subscription because the app was sending him in circles without completing the cancellation. Then, when his friend tries to speak to representatives on the matter, he's still sent in multiple directions in an attempt to cancel. The bug in the app is eventually fixed, but the friend is so peeved off at this point that he demands a refund for the period of time he was not using the app but was still getting billed for it. The company refuses, so he becomes the star of a $23M class action lawsuit, where he made out like a bandit with a stunning four-figure sum of cash. Scroll below to read the full story.

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    PLAINTIFF
    via Unsplash - Wesley Tingey
  • 02
    Not laying down for predatory billing practices - dude was denied a $45 refund, they paid $23 million a couple years later
    via PunkiesB***r
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    A close friend of mine, who would absolutely love to gloat about this here, but can't because of rule number four (it takes very little imagination too find the public notifications that the case generated) gave me the nod to tell this story which begins with his impulsive decision to try out the paid features of a dating app
    via PunkiesB***r
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    for one week for the usual reasons, sometime in the middle of 2018. He says he clicked through the pay wall, was prompted for a credit card number which he provided, agreeing to pay $6.99. He saw nothing to indicate that it would be a recurrent billing. Of course this was naive, but being a guy
    via PunkiesB***r
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    who was just coming into the age where he had enough money to afford stuff like that, he didn't have much experience doing business with tech companies. He says he wasn't much more impressed with the paid features than the free ones, and kind of just Stopped opening the app,
    via PunkiesB***r
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    deleted it from his phone a couple weeks later, and pretty much forgot about it. Fast forward 3 months, he sees a charge for $6.99 paid to "SOCIAL MEDIA INC." Or some similarly non descriptive name, drills down and sees that he's been paying it every week for a few months. He ends up having to call his bank, which provided enough information for him to connect the dots.
    via PunkiesB***r
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    After searching for a way to contact customer service unsuccessfully he re-downloaded the app, and found no obvious way to unsubscribe. He followed the help links, which provided instructions that didn't work. Eventually he found an email address and sent a succinct description of his problem, and received a flippant response
    via PunkiesB***r
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    which regurgitated the instructions from the help pages in the app. This initiated a series of emails over the better part of a week, in which he provided increasingly detailed info about the screens he was presented with as he tried to follow their instructions, and received increasingly dismissive and even contemptuous responses, until
    via PunkiesB***r
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    he received a set of slightly modified instructions that included updating the app. There had obviously been a bug, but there was no apology and at this point, the amount of time it cost him had added injury to insult. He requested a $45 refund for the weeks that he hadn't even had the app installed in his phone, and received a sneering denial in response.
    via PunkiesB***r
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    Figuring it was likely that others had been treated the same way, he simply Googled "class action lawsuit against [well known dating app]" and discovered that he was correct. A law firm that was only one area code away from his had filed a complaint on behalf of a class of people with similar complaints. He called the
    via PunkiesB***r
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    number left a message, got to return call about an hour later from an attorney that was eager to hear his story. He was asked to gather some bank statements, Google Play Store account records and write a couple of paragraphs describing his experience, wish he provided in a neatly compiledl PDF package. A
    via PunkiesB***r
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    week or so later there was a second interview with that attorney and one of his colleagues, ending with them inviting him to be the lead plaintiff of their class action lawsuit. Fast forward two and a half years, during which my friend invested maybe 20 or 30 hours, mostly in
    via PunkiesB***r
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    phone calls and one in person meeting with the same two attorneys (who it turns out were the entire firm), he received a phone call notifying him that the legal team for this giant Tech firm had crumbled as the court date approached and agreed to a settlement of $23m.
    via PunkiesB***r
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    My friend received a modest four digit incentive award in return for being the lead plaintiff.. I guess the lawyers did much better in return for the two and a half years of working their off in what was kind of a risky David and Goliath situation for them.
    via PunkiesB***r
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    The attorneys gleefully invited him to get in touch and share any future perceived injustices with them, which he has but unfortunately tech companies have become much more arbitration-clausey so that's probably a one-time shot for him.
    via PunkiesB***r
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    But, In a world of increasingly predatory corporations that strive to squeeze consumers by trapping us in tldr terms and conditions, and monopolizing every corner of the economy, my friend now has a script for standing up for himself when he perceives that he's being taken advantage of. It goes something like " I want to make you aware that I'm a guy who makes time to
    via PunkiesB***r
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    stand up for myself as a consumer it's become sort of a - hobby, and I'm pretty good at it. I don't object to businesses making a fair profit, but if you're going to try to squeeze me, | promise it won't be worth it. And if there's any doubt in your mind that I mean what I say, do a Google search for [his name] vs. [dating app]."
    via PunkiesB***r
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    Yes, it can be annoying. I should mention that he has a very patient SO.
    via PunkiesB***r
  • 19
    Chaosmusic • 5h ago • This is why I support laws saying that canceling a subscription must be as easy as signing up for one.
    via Chaosmusic
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    doesitnotmake... 4h ago. Plot Twist: The company still made more than the $23mil they shelled out.
    via doesitnotmakesense
  • 21
    Ramrod489 • 10h ago. But for real, which app did he meet the SO on?
    via Ramrod489

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