Hims & Hers sued by FTC, accused of sharing user health information

The Federal Trade Commission, Utah and Los Angeles County sued Hims & Hers Health Inc. on  Wednesday for allegedly misleading consumers about its products and sharing their private health information with Meta Platforms Inc. and Snap Inc.

Hims shares extended declines after the suit was filed, falling more than 15%, the biggest intraday drop since May 12.

In a lawsuit filed in California federal court, the agency said Hims failed to disclose to consumers that they were purchasing a subscription, made it too difficult to cancel and misled them about the privacy of their information by sharing it with the social networks for advertising purposes. The FTC said those business practices violate federal consumer protection laws, while Utah and LA alleged violations of state laws.

“The FTC’s complaint lays out a troubling scenario: consumers unknowingly locked into recurring subscriptions and the disclosure to third parties of consumers’ most private health information without their consent,” Christopher Mufarrige, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement.

According to the complaint, while Hims claimed that it would connect consumers with medical providers to determine whether they needed prescription medication, the company often immediately charged them as soon as they submitted an intake form. Before 2023, Hims also required cancellations via phone, email or chat. Even after it added an online cancellation option, the complaint alleged, the process remained difficult to navigate.

“This lawsuit disregards substantial evidence we provided the FTC during its nearly three-year investigation, ignores established state laws and industry standards in telehealth, and contorts the law to try to manufacture claims,” Hims said in a statement on X.

The telehealth company has about 2.6 million subscribers who pay a monthly fee for access to doctors able to prescribe medications for common conditions like obesity, hair loss and erectile dysfunction. However, some customers have said that Hims makes it unnecessarily difficult to cancel their subscriptions and that the company continues to charge their credit cards after cancellation, according to social media posts and complaints filed with the nonprofit Better Business Bureau.