Company behind Christian Mingle agrees to pay customers $1M over auto renewals

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (KABC) -- The company behind dating sites J-Date and Christian Mingle has agreed to pay $1 million to customers.

The city of Santa Monica and a number of counties settled a consumer protections action against Spark Networks USA for automatically renewing customer subscriptions without their consent.

The company will pay a $500,000 fine and almost $1 million in restitution to customers.

Spark Networks USA must also now clearly disclose its renewal terms and allow users to easily cancel their subscriptions.