Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v eHarmony, Inc

eHarmony's Australian sales journey used free claims, monthly prices and fixed plan lengths to attract and convert customers. The Court found misleading conduct or representations concerning free dating, monthly pricing, automatic renewal, one-month plans and cancellation. It separately found a section 48 single-price breach because the minimum total plan price was not prominently specified as one figure.

The ACCC succeeded on all six conduct groups. The case is especially useful for subscription businesses because it examines the homepage, SEO landing pages, signup flow, checkout, terms and confirmation email as parts of one customer experience.

A person could register without paying and complete an approximately 80-question compatibility quiz. A Basic member could review profile text, see blurred photographs, send likes, smiles and an icebreaker, but could not exchange unlimited messages. Unblurred photographs and unlimited messaging required Premium membership.

eHarmony nevertheless used phrases such as free dating across SEO and help pages and other website content. Some pages mentioned Premium features or described the free service as a trial, but those qualifications did not prevent a misleading impression about free dating when photographs remained blurred and users could not exchange unlimited messages.

Before July 2024, the subscription page presented six, 12 and 24-month plans using a prominent figure such as from $23.94 per month. The payment options added $3 per month for monthly payments, $2 per month for quarterly payments or $1 per month for biannual payments. Paying monthly produced instalments of $26.94 in the Court's representative 12-month example. The fuller fee disclosure appeared only after plan and payment-frequency selection and most likely after payment details had been entered.

A customer could reasonably understand the headline as the amount payable each month. The Court found that the later fee did not erase that pre-July representation. Wording added in July 2024 explained that the headline figure reflected a one-time upfront payment and fixed that monthly-price issue. The page still failed the ACL single-price rule because the minimum total price of $287.28 for that example plan was not prominently specified as one figure.

Customers selected a plan labelled for six, 12 or 24 months. Unless they disabled renewal in time, the membership renewed for 12 months at the regular price, without the introductory discount. The fuller renewal wording appeared only after the customer had selected a plan and payment frequency and most likely entered payment details. It was much less prominent than the discounted plan presentation.

The Court found that this later and less prominent renewal disclosure was insufficient on these facts. A confirmation email sent after purchase did not cure the misleading impression created before purchase. Evidence showed renewals could be much larger than the initial payment: one consumer's discounted six-month payment of $149.70 renewed for 12 months at $598.80.

eHarmony stopped offering one-month Premium plans around September 2019, but stale pages continued the one-month claim until October 2021 on one page and around May 2023 on another.

Separate cancellation wording conveyed that customers had an opportunity to withdraw after signing up. In practice, cancellation generally stopped future renewal but did not end the current term or entitle the customer to a refund for that term. The Court found both representations misleading.

List every public page and app screen that uses free, trial, monthly, cancel or renew, then follow each common route to purchase on desktop, mobile and app. Compare the first promise with the live product, price, contract and cancellation flow, including when and how prominently each qualification appears.