Payment pain caused by fitness app with some strings attached

A woman was charged HK$938 after downloading what was supposed to be a free fitness app and feeding in personal information.

This was one of two complaints received by the Consumer Council about mobile apps last month. There were 20 similar complaints last year, up from six cases in 2017 and 2018.

In the case of the fitness app, the complainant said she had to provide fingerprint verification after downloading the supposedly free app and inputting information such as her fitness target, her height and weight and lifestyle habits.

But then she received a transaction notification of HK$938 via an SMS.

The mobile sales platform said later the payment was the annual subscription fee of the fitness app.

The customer was unhappy at being charged before she had even started a trial use of an app that offered basics such as making a fitness plan, a reminder about a need to go walking or running and drinking water.

The operator of the platform later agreed to what was described as a one-time special full refund.

There was also a reminder for her to cancel the her application to avoid being charged again.

In another case a person downloaded a clerical app for a seven-day free trial offer but deleted it before the expiry of the trial period. The person later found HK$238 had been charged on a phone bill.

A staffer at the service provider claimed the company was authorized to charge a mobile app fee according to a purchase record and that any complaint should be directed to the app sales platform or the developer.

The person sought assistance from the council after failing to obtain a refund.

Nora Tam Fung-yee of the Consumer Council's research and testing committee, said people should read details of app services carefully and check information relating to trial periods, charging terms, automatic subscriptions and cancellations before acting.

"If an app requires confirmation steps such as face recognition or fingerprints consumers should pay extra attention as it may allow the use of credit card information stored in a mobile phone," Tam added.