A consumer submits a medical intake form expecting to discuss treatment. The company treats that submission as authorization to purchase the selected medication and begin recurring deliveries.
That is the mismatch alleged in the Hims & Hers complaint, following the July 29 announcement of an FTC and state enforcement action. The allegations have not been adjudicated.
Weeks later, New York announced a settlement with Thirty Madison, operator of brands including Keeps, Cove, and Nurx, addressing subscription disclosures and cancellation practices.
Together, the matters examine both ends of recurring billing. What authorizes the first charge and enrollment? And can the consumer effectively stop the charges that follow?
An Intake Form Can Carry More Than One Decision
The Hims complaint alleges that consumers were led to expect a free opportunity to consider a provider’s recommendation before committing to purchase. Instead, most were allegedly charged and subscribed before learning the recommended treatment.
Paragraphs 27–29 connect that allegation to promised consultations and unclear charging disclosures. The complaint discusses the absence of dialogue whether live or asynchronous. It does not establish a general requirement that telehealth encounters involve a live conversation.
The distinction is commercial consent. Permission to review medical information, authority to prescribe, agreement to buy medication, and authorization for recurring charges answer different questions.
A company can seek those permissions in a coordinated process. But the interface must make the proposed transaction understandable. Collecting a payment card does not, by itself, explain what the consumer has agreed to buy or how often charges will recur.
Nor does the absence of a second checkout necessarily establish a violation. The question is whether the initial authorization clearly covered what followed. A process presented as an opportunity to explore treatment creates different expectations from an explicitly described purchase commitment.
Federal Law Addresses Both Enrollment and Cancellation
For covered online negative-option transactions, ROSCA requires clear and conspicuous disclosure of all material terms before obtaining billing information, express informed consent before charging, and simple mechanisms to stop recurring charges.
A negative-option arrangement generally treats the consumer’s failure to cancel as permission to continue charging. The legal concern is not the subscription format alone. It is whether the consumer knowingly entered that arrangement and has a workable way to leave it.
An enrollment review should therefore follow the actual sequence. What does the advertisement promise? What appears before payment details are collected? What does the submission button communicate? Which terms explain the first charge, subsequent prices, refill schedule, and cancellation deadline?
Accurate language in a lengthy agreement cannot be evaluated apart from the more prominent statements surrounding it. The entire presentation determines what the consumer understands.
Cancellation Must Work After the Request
New York’s Thirty Madison announcement identified unclear renewal terms, higher prices after the first order, nonrefundable fees, and multistep cancellation. It also described delays resulting in additional charges, and customers who were not told that some subscriptions required sharing sensitive personal data.
The settlement requires $400,000, changes to practices, and restitution for eligible consumers, with any shortfall below $500,000 in restitution paid to the State. Thirty Madison neither admits nor denies the findings. These are settlement obligations arising from a state investigation, distinct from the pending Hims allegations.
New York’s Assurance of Discontinuance distinguishes automatically renewing nonprescription subscriptions from automatically charged prescription refills. It describes enrollment language in small, light-gray text, separated from a prominent purchase button, and consumers who believed they were buying a one-time supply. Its forward-looking terms require material terms on the first enrollment page beside the consent request, affirmative consent obtained separately from other transaction terms, online cancellation in one click that takes effect on submission, and that a medical intake review not be called a consultation unless it is described as an asynchronous consultation.
For a company reviewing cancellation, the presence of a button or email address is only the beginning. The review should follow a request through to the billing system. Did the consumer reach the correct control? Was the request processed? Were future charges stopped when required?
A retention message and a completed cancellation are different events. The business needs to know which one its records capture.
