Billy was Lovin’ Tinder’s Cattle Call for Hookups until…

March 18th, 2015. By LucyC

…he found out love (even the meat market kind that’s based on, uh, appearances) ain’t cheap.

Here’s the deal: $2.99 for unlimited “Likes”—(I guess that means “Likes” are officially a currency now). Sounds like a great deal, right? Not if you’ve been getting if for free. The hook-up, sorry, dating app—Tinder.com is raising its rates—from free to $2.99 – and at least one user has his knickers in a knot over it.

California resident Billy Warner has filed a class action against Tinder alleging the social media company/app lures people into signing up by offering a free service. Then, when you’re hooked— BAMMO!! That’ll be $2.99 please! Less than your average moderate sized cappuccino—just to put it in perspective.

For those of us not familiar with the app– the short course on Tinder is that it enables you to find people within a certain radius of where you are located—using your phone. You look at complete strangers’ profiles and pictures which are uploaded from their Facebook accounts – with their permission – and qualify them, pretty much on the spot, presumably with the goal of hooking up – at some point and for some purpose. Qualifying them involves swiping to the right to “like” someone and to the left to pass on someone.

“A swipe can change your life” the website claims. No kidding.

So what’s the problem with paying for all that potential fun? Especially for such a nominal fee?  Well, the problem for Billy is, he’s hooked. Warner claims that he is “entrenched in the use” of the app and had he known that Tinder would charge for it, he would not have downloaded it. Seriously?

He’s alleging a classic “bait and switch”. Oh – there is a principal involved…?

According to the Tinder class action lawsuit, “Tinder has, up until now, allowed users to enjoy unlimited free swipes and has been a free app,” Warner contends. “Tinder has never advertised, represented, or otherwise indicated to its customers, including plaintiff, that the use of its services will require any form or payment.”

“Defendant offered these free services with the goal in mind of enlisting a user base of tens or hundreds of millions of users, with the ultimate goal of later changing the rules of participation and deceptively and forcibly migrating a substantially percentage of its user base to a paid subscription model,” the complaint states. That certainly has the potential to generate serious amounts of cash.

Warner contends that “Had Defendant warned Plaintiff that additional fees may apply, Plaintiff would have reconsidered Plaintiff’s use of Defendant’s app….Failure to disclose that additional fees may apply unfairly induced Plaintiff’s downloading of Defendant’s app, as he reasonably believed it to be a ‘free’ service.” So—why pay for the cow…right?

Poor old Billy discovered that he would have to pay $2.99 per month to continue using the app when he was notified that he was out of “likes” and that he could purchase unlimited “likes” for $2.99 per month. Out of Likes? That’s gotta take some doing (and let’s hope Billy didn’t blow one of those precious likes on Ava (25, from NYC…)

“[Tinder’s] abrupt policy change constitutes an unfair and deceptive trade practice, put into place to forcibly migrate users to paid subscription services, in order to receive the same services that had previously been provided and advertised free of charge,” the class action lawsuit states.

Maybe a bait and switch is going on and maybe it’s a problem for Billy and thousands of other users, but I’m betting it’s still one of the cheapest sources of booty going. And, if they’re not monetizing the app through registration fees, you have to like wonder what the options are.

Oh wait…the options are (drumroll) to charge more registration fees. As reported earlier this month, looks like Tinder is going to charge fees for premium features on a tiered fee basis. Tiered? Uh-huh…the fees are higher for the over-30 set (to cut those poor budget-constrained under-30 somethings a break). Sounds a bit discriminatory, eh? But then again, wasn’t it Crosby, Stills & Nash who said, “…and it gets harder as you get older…”

This was posted on Wednesday, March 18th, 2015 at 12:53 pm and is filed under Crazy Sh*t Lawyers See . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.