Look out, kids. Your Tinder account is about to be swamped by old people... probably Young people may have better skin, but old people seemingly have better lawyers. (And by old, we mean people over 30. Which is a good number of us vultures, admittedly. Truth hurts.) Anyone using the Tinder dating app for the next few months may find that there is a disproportionate number of more mature lonely-hearts …
"does Kim just benefit from the $25 offer "
Based on my skim of the ruling, that plus 5 grand.
"Defendants have also agreed to pay the proposed $5,000.00 Incentive
Payment to the Plaintiff (Agreement § 7.2) and the proposed Attorneys’ Fee Award
in the amount of $1,200,000.00 plus reasonable Cost Reimbursement to Class
Counsel, pending approval by the Court. "
"This Settlement intentionally avoids providing significant benefits to a cy
pres recipient at the expense of the class. "
So she does get some money for her hassle, but in terms of time I'd expect she's probably less compensated than anyone on her legal team.
Class action has a use, and this does seem to be broadly of that scope. Tinder has already lost cases under exactly this situation (Unfair Competition Law) when sued by Allan Candelore, and has decided to not change it's policies as a result.
So a class action means that instead of 230,000 people being able to sue them and win, but being impractical to do so, one test case is used and the result applied to all.
The lawyers getting 5% of the maximum potential payout may look steep, but consider that the defendant has been found guilty of ripping people off and yet we're supposed to mad at the lawyers who called them on their shit.
Companies steal from us all the time, since if you steal a million bucks from one place you'll get investigated, but if you can steal $1 from a million people then you can probably get away with it. While I'd prefer some proper prosecutions and admitting of wrongdoing, I know that's a pipe dream. Making them cough up some small fines at least adds a cost to their behavior, possibly even stopping it....
Lawyers are the only ones who ever score in class action law suits.
My inner sceptic says that's the only reason they bother bringing them.
My inner pragmatist says it can be a lot of work, hence cost, to bring a class action.
My inner sceptic reminds my inner pragmatist lawyers need work, are often parasitic scum sucking moluscs, thus look to create work benefiting themselves far more than their clients. Shit, we can't even starve the bastards.
What, pray tell, was the reasoning here? I assume their internal data showed them a twenty-something woman getting "super liked" by her dad's friends tended to turn them away from the service? The fewer attractive women you have, the fewer men paying to use the app. So if the creepy old dudes want to play, they have to pay extra to offset the losses their actions are causing to the user base (and Tinder's income).
I'm sure the fact that older women were caught up in this debacle was either accidental (are their user numbers more Ashley Madison like, 90%+ males? maybe they didn't anticipate any female users even noticing this) or maybe they knew if they charged men more than women they'd get caught in a gender-based lawsuit even faster?
Of course, maybe this was a socialist experiment. Older people tend to have better, more stable incomes, and therefore Tinder was simply taking advantage of that extra income. Well, actually, they would have to redistribute the wealth in some form to be socialist, I suppose this would still just be a capitalist reason, with a socialist white-wash.
"They based it on ability to pay, and difficulty in meeting people the ordinary way. Those under 30 have less of both."
The money part, sure, but I'd have thought that 'the usual way' of meeting people would involve going out to pubs/bars etc. which is generally done more by the under-thirties (at least in my experience). The young 'uns are the only ones who can hack the hangovers.
are their user numbers more Ashley Madison like, 90%+ males?
I've tried several dating apps in the 3 years that I've been divorced and near as I can tell they're ALL 90%+ male once you discount the fembots (those are easy to spot: a supermodel interested in my overweight, nerdy, socially inept butt is clearly not a real woman). Then again, I'm looking for women close to my age, so maybe it's different for the younger crowd.
but speaking as middle aged techie interested in women half my age there are a few model types interested in me and I'm bloody grateful for it. The ones whose photos are posed but don't show any identifiable background location get filtered out, as do those who want a sugar daddy arrangement. I find it best not to question the motives of the remainder so long as we're both enjoying ourselves.
AC for obvious reasons
In London there are plenty of women on Tinder - at least, there were 2 years ago. As a 36yr old, not particularly attractive male, I went on many dates with similarly aged ladies (30-40yr). Maybe I was Tindering wrong, but these were actual dates, we'd meet for a drink and talk, maybe get some food, maybe not, maybe some hanky panky. Can't speak for now because I met my GF on Tinder ~2 years ago, haven't used it since...
Maybe I was Tindering wrong, but these were actual dates
I don't think that's Tindering wrong at all. That's exactly what I was looking for before I gave up on Tinder (for a lot of reasons). In fact, if you actually read profiles that's what a good chunk of the women on there are looking for. At least half the profiles I've seen on Tinder say something to the effect of "If you're just looking for meaningless sex go ahead and swipe left".
Then again, that's my area, where churches outnumber bars about 10 to 1 and there are no nightclubs at all and the culture reflects that. So, you know, maybe a skewed view of it.
I would assume that the twenty-something girl (or guy, no sexism here) would set their filters for the age range they are looking for (twenty-something) so no matter how much her/his father/mothers friends "super liked" them, it wouldn't show up as their filters wouldn't (shouldn't) show people aged outside their requested age bracket.
If you can hand out 5 a day, that's over 1800 a year! You'd think they'd want them to be something special and unique, but I imagine women who are a "10" (or have a suitably photoshopped profile pic to make them appear as such) will be peppered with so many of these that the profiles of the "likers" won't stand out at all.
They should let you give out one a week, then people would be forced to be judicious in their use instead of carpet bombing Tinder with them.
Thank god I'm a Grindr and Scruff kind of guy. It's so much simpler. You set parameters of what you're looking for and you're done. If someone bothers you, there's this neat thing called "block".
Most guys are perfectly happy to kiss a chorus of frogs in order to find their prince. This might lower the bar in terms of app performance.
I am no lawyer but it is clear to me that charging users over a certain age more for the same product/service would be against the age discrimination laws.
These companies are worth millions of dollars surely they have at least one lawyer to check these things before they rush them out to market?
"The actual cost to Tinder-owner Match is only going to be $25 multiplied by the number of old folk who bother to apply for it. It could reach $5.75m if all estimated 230,000 users that are entitled to the payment apply, but on average only five per cent of class action users actually hear about or bother, so it will likely cost the biz less than $300,000."
Gee, if only there was some way to disseminate such useful information, like say by some kind of online tech news outlet. Nah, crazy idea.
Seriously though, I'm over 30, I'm on Tinder, how do I get my 25 buck-a-roos?
"Seriously though, I'm over 30, I'm on Tinder, how do I get my 25 buck-a-roos?"
And you paid for premium membership? And you live in Cali? Then by submitting the form. You'll get your free super likes automatically.
If you didn't pay, then I'm confused as to what you are asking about. A company overcharged for a service, and those who got overcharged get compensation. If you never over paid, then how can you be owed anything? :D
"So, is it also illegal for businesses to offer "senior rates"?"
In principle, no. That's technically third degree price discrimination and perfectly legal. The age bias is normally only for employment only.
A business is allowed to charge different people different rates.
First degree discrimination is based of people's ability to pay and the company trying to get the highest price. So a car dealer might sell the same model of car for different amounts to different people and it's generally OK.
Second degree is based on volume. So you can charge someone $2 for one widget or $100 for 100 widgets and that's perfectly legal.
Third degree is discounts aimed at specific segments of the population as a marketing ploy to encourage customer loyalty. Generally age is considered an acceptable cut off here (kids under 5 free, half price for over 65 etc) and is not considered discriminatory by itself. If you only gave the discount to black or Jewish pensioners then you'd be in trouble for discrimination.
So discounts are legal. In fact, the settlement specifically notes that Tinder can offer discounts to under 21s and this is all kosher. If they had priced membership at 20 bucks and offered a discount to 18-29 year olds they may have been fine too.
This is also a settlement, not a court ruling. So neither sides legal arguments have been tested, and the judge felt that both had legitimate arguments.
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