The US Federal Trade Commission, joined by the state of Utah and California, has filed a lawsuit against telehealth provider Hims & Hers, accusing the company of secretly sharing sensitive health information with advertising platforms while misleading customers about its prescription, billing, and subscription practices.
The complaint, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that Hims violated the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act (ROSCA) by automatically enrolling consumers into recurring prescription subscriptions without obtaining informed consent, making cancellations unnecessarily difficult, and disclosing health-related data to companies including Meta and Snap despite marketing its services as private and secure.
Founded in 2017 and headquartered in San Francisco, Hims & Hers operates one of the largest direct-to-consumer telehealth platforms in the US, offering online consultations and prescription treatments for conditions including hair loss, erectile dysfunction, mental health, skincare, and weight loss.
The FTC says Hims repeatedly promoted its platform as “100% online, private, and secure” and assured users that sensitive medical information would only be accessed by healthcare providers managing their care. Instead, the complaint alleges the company shared customer lists and website activity with Meta and Snap and deployed Meta Pixel, Conversions API, and tracking pixels from numerous other advertising companies, including Google, Microsoft, Reddit, TikTok, X, Pinterest, and The Trade Desk, enabling the collection of health-related browsing events for advertising purposes.
According to the FTC, Hims advertised “free consultations” and assured users they would only be charged if prescribed medication. However, regulators claim that in most states, customers never received an opportunity to discuss or approve a doctor's recommendation before the company charged their payment method, filled the prescription, and enrolled them in an automatically renewing subscription. The complaint also cites numerous customer complaints, including one user who reported being unexpectedly billed $897 after completing an online questionnaire.
The lawsuit also claims Hims obscured important subscription terms. Regulators allege refill charges were often processed 10 days earlier than customers would reasonably expect, while cancellation deadlines and recurring billing dates were buried in small print beneath checkout buttons.
Another notable allegation concerns the company's cancellation flow. Even after introducing online cancellations in 2023, the FTC says customers first had to navigate to an “Add/remove items from order” menu that never mentioned cancellation, uncheck every subscribed product before the option to cancel appeared, and then complete between three and ten retention surveys before the request was accepted.
The FTC further alleges Hims continued many of the challenged practices despite years of consumer complaints and only began making limited changes after learning of the agency's investigation in late 2023. The lawsuit seeks injunctive relief, monetary remedies, civil penalties under state law, and court orders preventing the company from continuing the alleged practices. As with all FTC complaints, the allegations remain unproven until decided by the court.
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