Looking for love might end up being an expensive affair
FINDING true love in the time of coronavirus is not easy. With romance limited to chat, rather than meet-ups, many people have even given up on dating apps, leading to a nasty surprise for some.
Online dating sites make their money through premium services that ‘unlock’ things like direct messages (or a greater number of messages), a wider range of search or filter options (height, age, interests, etc.) or features like photo sharing.
But pricing for these extras is often unclear, and incredibly hard to cancel – resulting in an explosion of complaints.
WHEN DATING APPS GO WRONG
COMPLAINTS about dating apps leapt by 722% to 4,346 complaints in 2020, up from 529 the previous year. The biggest issue was the often considerable charges dating apps hit you with you for premium services. A worrying number say they had never authorised the payments or didn’t realise they were being billed.
People have reported charges ranging from £10 to £49.99 a month, with some services catering for wealthy professionals charging much, much more.
If you’re paying by the month you could end up forking out £200 to £300 or more a year.
Many people have told me they couldn’t speak to a human, interact with customer services – or even get in touch and cancel. Many others are deeply concerned about being debited hundreds of pounds for services they didn’t want or ask for.
Other issues include prices being debited in six-month chunks rather than by the month, difficulties in reporting fake profiles or unpleasant people on site and limitations on promised premium services in practice.
The good news is it’s fairly easy to cancel a payment through your bank or card provider. Dating app premiums are usually debited from bank accounts, credit cards or (potentially) phone bills through ‘continuous payment authorities’ which can be cancelled with a phone call.
However, if you haven’t authorised the firm to debit you, you can potentially seek a refund from the firm.
Bear in mind this won’t work if you’ve used the extra services. You may also be able to negotiate a refund if you simply haven’t used the site.
WHAT SITES DO WITH YOUR DATA
ONE in five relationships start through online dating sites and millions in the UK are signed up with one or more apps. Yet websites and apps are also watching what you do online, collecting everything from personal preferences to interactions with potential partners.
Many firms have pushed laws that protect your data pretty far. Gay dating app Grindr was fined £8.6m by the Norwegian Data Protection Authority recently for sharing data on sexuality, location and mental health information with advertisers and many others.
Research from free data protection experts recently revealed that UK dating apps and websites were collecting an enormous amount of personal data, from religious beliefs and race to gender and geolocation.
Find out more at: rightly.co. uk/blog/what-do-dating-appsdo-with-my-data/
The path to true love doesn’t always run smoothly, but we should all think twice before oversharing on these websites and apps – and if you sign up to a premium service, don’t forget.
You could find you’ve forked out a fortune!