'They paid $23 million a couple years later': Guy gets back at major dating app for predatory billing practices after being denied a simple $45 refund

Author image for Brad Dickson
Brad Dickson • Managing Editor
Oct 9, 2024 6:00 PM EDT

Let's be real; everything is a subscription these days, whether or not they should be or even really can be. Before long, we'll need to keep up with the weekly subscription on our toaster for the privilege of cooking two pieces of toast at once. While that might sound outrageous, keep in mind printers have already normalized that type of thing for years—even new cars have started coming with basic features locked behind subscription-based grifting models. 

While this is bad, it's even worse when you sign up to try something, and then when you try to cancel, you come to find that it's unbelievably difficult to do so. Whereas it was easy to sign up (usually under a "free" trial), the button to cancel before the annual fee is charged will be concealed within the most remote regions of the app or website.

That's what happened in this story, where the author shared a second-hand account of how a friend of theirs got back at a major dating app over a simple refusal of a $45 refund request.

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    Cheezburger Image 10414388480
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+
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    Not laying down for predatory billing practices - dude was denied a $45 refund, they paid $23 million a couple years later 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
    via PunkiesBoner
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    his impulsive decision to try out the paid features of a dating app 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 PunkiesBoner
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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, deleted it from his phone a
    via PunkiesBoner
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    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 PunkiesBoner
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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 which regurgitated the instructions from the help pages
    via PunkiesBoner
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    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 he received a set of slightly modified instructions that included updating the app. There
    via PunkiesBoner
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    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 PunkiesBoner
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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 number left a message, got to return call about an hour later
    via PunkiesBoner
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    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 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.
    via PunkiesBoner
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    Fast forward two and a half years, during which my friend invested maybe 20 or 30 hours, mostly in 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 PunkiesBoner
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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 ; off in years of working their what was kind of a risky David and Goliath situation for them. 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 PunkiesBoner
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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 II like I want to make you aware that I'm a guy who makes time to
    via PunkiesBoner
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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, I 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]." Yes, it can be annoying. I should mention that he has a very patient SO.
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    Chaosmusic · 12h ago This is why I support laws saying that canceling a subscription must be as easy as signing up for one.
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    • Techno-Pineap... 16h ago. The company I work for does a similar thing with their premium subscription to what to'er did here, but they have at least evolved enough to not get sued and are slightly less awful. They regularly prompt for premium upgrades, with the x button conveniently out of the way and in a muted grey colour. They offer recurring
    via PunkiesBoner
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    bill on both the monthly and yearly subscription. We get a lot of older and non-tech customers due to the nature of the app. So while it is clearly an optional premium upgrade, it doesn't actually do THAT much and lots of people sign up thinking thats just what you have to do to use the app. Also, while it is clearly stated as a recurring subscription, a year/a month
    via PunkiesBoner
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    is a long time and tons of people just don't read what they are buying or simply forget. We get a lot of customers that are upset they were billed again at the next cycle. Lastly, they will give refunds if you forgot to cancel/ didn't realise it was recurring. We even get people that swear they never signed up to premium... But they did, entering your credit card
    via PunkiesBoner
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    details is the only possible way to get billed in our system, we can't hack your app store account. Either way, the company is clearly happy with people mistakenly giving them. money and keep it this way on purpose. You don't actually have to remove the option to cancel or lie at all in order to design a system
    via PunkiesBoner
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    where people give you money accidentally. People are just lazy and not really tech-minded and companies prey on that. I've noticed it is just the way of the world nowadays, not great.
    via PunkiesBoner
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    Fortune Telling... • 15h ago • Nice. I was one of the leads on a Tort and the lawyers made bank--something like 70%. Totally worth it to me for doing next to nothing, though. All I had to do was email a few pics and sign a few things. They worked super hard for my 30% and I still feel like I got a pleasant cut.
    via PunkiesBoner
  • 22
    BF1shY 12h ago . $23 mil and the dude gets $9999 at best
    via PunkiesBoner

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