Bark review: High-value charge without consent and credits consumed automatically

My experience with Bark.com raises significant concerns regarding their compliance with basic consumer protection principles. While navigating my account, the platform processed a high-value charge of more than $1,100 for “credits” without a checkout page, without a confirmation step, without clear pricing review, and without any opportunity to provide express and informed consent. No legitimate online platform should process payments of this size through a single unconfirmed interaction.

I contacted Bark’s support team immediately after the charge appeared. Instead of resolving an unauthorised and mistaken transaction, Bark refused to issue a refund. Their justification was that some of the purchased credits had been “used,” despite my having raised the issue straight away.

What Bark omitted is that the “usage” they rely on did not occur through any action on my part. Bark later disclosed that an internal profile setting called “Enquiries” had been enabled. I did not enable this setting, was not aware it existed, and did not consent to any automatic use of credits. After reviewing my account, I discovered that this feature is explicitly marked by Bark as “Beta.” For a beta feature to autonomously consume purchased credits without clear consent from the account holder is highly questionable from both a consumer rights and payment-authorisation standpoint.

At no time did I actively purchase, select, or deploy credits. Bark’s own system automatically consumed them through a feature I had no knowledge of and that was never disclosed to me when the charge was processed. The suggestion that this constitutes “use” that voids a refund is untenable and does not align with the standards required under Australian Consumer Law relating to informed consent, transparency and unfair conduct.

The platform’s refusal to engage meaningfully with the issue, combined with evasive and contradictory explanations, leaves the impression of a system that lacks appropriate safeguards and accountability. I have escalated the matter through my bank’s dispute process and am pursuing regulatory complaints with the ACCC and NSW Fair Trading.

Professionals considering Bark.com should be acutely aware of how easily high-value charges can be processed without proper authorisation and how quickly their system can consume purchased credits without any deliberate action by the user. In my view, Bark’s payment flows and automated credit “usage” mechanisms fall well short of the level of transparency and consumer protection expected of a platform handling stored card details and significant sums of money.