Disappointed Singles Sue Tinder and Hinge for Defrauding Those Seeking Love

For Valentine’s Day, Match Group, the company that owns the most famous dating applications such as Tinder, Hinge or Meetic, received a lawsuit filed by several users who accuse it of defrauding them of their promises to find love.

The class action lawsuit, to which anyone who feels disappointed can join, arrived on Wednesday at the Northern District Court of California, in the city of San Francisco, on behalf of six clients spread across several states such as New York, California and Florida.

Those aggrieved maintain that the parent company “gamifies” the platforms’ services to transform users into gamers addicted to the search for psychological rewards to generate more profits instead of helping them establish relationships.

While Hinge’s advertising slogan boasts that the app is “designed to be deleted,” the lawsuit claims that the company created its services to hook users on a fruitless search for true love that is sustained by purchasing subscriptions. and other benefits that maintain the revenue flow of the listed company.

The plaintiffs consider this a “predatory” business model based on defrauding candidates by instilling in them the fear of missing out with an algorithm that rewards “compulsive use” of their platforms that encourages them to pay hundreds of dollars a year for subscriptions.

The company, they allege, thus violates state and federal consumer protection, false advertising and defective design laws. “Corporate profits are prioritized over its marketing promises and customer relationship objectives,” the lawsuit says.

Another claim is the addiction caused by automatic notifications that users receive similar to those used by other applications such as Instagram or Facebook. As well as those known as ‘match’, the ‘likes’ that connect the candidates, which keep users glued to the screens in an irresistible way.

Match Group Response

The dating giant, which also owns Match.com, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish and OurTime, with 2,000 employees worldwide, called the lawsuit “ridiculous” and “senseless.”

A Match Group spokesperson explained that the business model “is not based on advertising or engagement metrics” and that the daily effort consists of users “going on dates every day and leaving the apps.” “Anyone who says anything else does not understand the purpose and mission of our entire industry,” he added.

If we take Hinge as an example, with 23 million users in the US, the application offers four versions. The free one that limits ‘likes’ to a minimum to contact candidates. The basic one is $19.9 per month where only mutual ‘likes’ are visible, which represents an expense of about $240 per year.

The third option for $39.9 per month, which is equivalent to about $480 per year, where the ‘likes’ are unlimited and can be filtered by characteristics such as height. The most recent is the premium version, called ‘HingeX’, for $49.9 per month, $600 per year , which benefits from preferential treatment by the algorithm to have greater exposure or access to the most coveted singles in the world. application. Additionally, users can spend $3.99 to send virtual roses.

In his last appearance before analysts on January 31, Match CEO Bernard Kim explained that the Dallas-based company has adopted a “rapid response” mentality to failures to leave behind services that do not work. He also announced that the most popular, Tinder and Hinge, have begun to use artificial intelligence to improve user experiences.

A July 2022 survey by the Pew Research Center found that one in 10 American adults who are married, cohabiting with a partner, or in committed romantic relationships met their loved ones on dating sites or apps. If they work, many will likely stop using them, reducing companies’ revenues.

This is the first time that dating apps have been involved in a legal dispute similar to those that harass the main social networks. Alphabet, parent of Google, Meta, parent of Facebook and Instagram, China’s ByteDance, parent of TikTok, and Snap, parent of Snapchat, have already been sued for deliberately designing features to generate millions of addicts to their platforms.

The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified damages for people who paid to use Tinder, Hinge or The League in the past four years. As well as eliminating false promises in its advertisements and public warnings about the risks of addiction.

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