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eHarmony has been hit with a lawsuit by the consumer watchdog, alleging the dating site breached Australian consumer law by making misleading statements about the cancellation, cost and renewal of its memberships.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) on Thursday filed Federal Court action alleging eHarmony misled consumers by automatically renewing memberships, failing to display accurate prices, and claiming to offer "free dating", "one month" memberships, and early cancellation options.
eHarmony deprived consumers of the chance to make informed choices about joining and how much to spend in doing so, the ACCC alleges.
The lawsuit relates to alleged conduct going back to at least November 2019, with most of it said to be ongoing.
The ACCC said the allegations of automatic membership renewal amounted to a "subscription trap" — where a service is easy to sign up for but the process of canceling is much harder.
The federal government is currently looking at introducing legislation to counter what it calls "unfair trading practices", including subscription traps.
Do you have experience with a subscription trap? Email specialist.team@abc.net.au
Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said the ACCC had received "hundreds of complaints" about eHarmony and its memberships.
She said dating sites provided deeply personal services to people who were vulnerable to being misled.
For that reason, she said it was even more important that consumers get accurate information about the service they are paying for.
"They should be advertised with clear prices, a clear statement of benefits, and also absolute clarity as to the period of time for which we are paying and receiving benefits", she told reporters in Melbourne.
In a statement, eHarmony said it was aware of the matter and it had fully cooperated with the ACCC throughout its investigation.
"We deeply value the experience of all our members, including our Australian members, and we take our compliance obligations seriously." the statement said.
"We intend to fully respond to the ACCC's allegations in court."
Melbourne man Nishan Somarathna Japahuge signed up to eHarmony almost two years ago and is still trying to extract himself from its billing cycle.
A few months into using the service, he decided it wasn't for him and wrote to them asking to cancel his subscription.
He was told that wasn't possible because he had signed up to the service for 24 months.
"They kept deducting my money from my account," he said.
Mr Japahuge said he knew he was signing up for the two years but he expected to be able to cancel it like other services.
For almost 20 months, Mr Japahuge did not use eHarmony — he did not even log in to his account.
And every month, $32.90 was debited from his bank account.
Over the two years, he paid the dating site more than $800.
For that, he says all he got was a few people on the site saying 'hi'.
"It didn't match with anyone I was looking for," he said.
Towards the end of the 24 months, he said eHarmony stopped taking payments automatically, but then emailed him with an invoice for the final few outstanding payments.
When Mr Japahuge failed to pay those, the company threatened to get debt collectors to settle the account.
This week he said he paid an outstanding amount of $93 and has one more payment to make after that.
"Then I'm done," he said.
Specifically, the ACCC alleges eHarmony:
eHarmony should have known better as the ACCC consulted it in 2016 when developing best practice guidelines for dating websites, the regulator said.
"We are disappointed to have to take this action, especially since eHarmony should have been well and truly on notice about the need to provide consumers with clear and accurate information about their dating services," Ms Cass-Gottlieb said.
Posted Thu 7 Sep 2023 at 3:19am Thursday 7 Sep 2023 at 3:19am Thu 7 Sep 2023 at 3:19am , updated Thu 7 Sep 2023 at 5:27am Thursday 7 Sep 2023 at 5:27am Thu 7 Sep 2023 at 5:27am
