A law firm in Canada has filed a class action lawsuit against Match Group and Tinder, accusing the latter of age-based discrimination.
The lawsuit is alleging that Tinder was deliberately charging older users more for premium subscriptions, as well as employing potentially manipulative tactics to convince members to upgrade.
Canadian users aged 29 and under were charged $19.99 for one month of Tinder Gold, while those over 30 were charged twice as much.
The dating app faced similar action recently in California. However, its proposal to settle in August was rejected by the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit because it was deemed to be undervalued.
This latest lawsuit, filed by Slater Vecchio LLP, is also claiming that Tinder is hiding profiles from free users and sending them match notifications without actually showing them the person they’ve matched with. It’s believed this is a deliberate attempt to frustrate users into paying for a membership.
Another Match Group subsidiary was accused of similar offences and undertaking fraudulent business practices by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2019. It was claimed that Match.com deliberately allowed scam accounts to remain active, while also promoting them to unsuspecting users.
The FTC claimed that almost half a million members were conned into registering for premium memberships because they thought the scam connections were genuine.
Read more here.