Zalo charges users to create new accounts

Many users said they had to pay to create new Zalo accounts, even though the app still claims to be a 'free messaging and calling app on mobile and computers'.

Zalo starts charging users to register new accounts - Photo: ZALO

According to Tuoi Tre Online 's investigation, many users said Zalo has started charging for new account registration by texting to mobile service numbers to receive activation codes.

Specifically, Ms. My Thanh (Thu Duc City, Ho Chi Minh City) said that she registered a new Zalo account for her mother on February 14, but instead of entering the phone number, setting up a password and receiving an automatic OTP confirmation code as before, "I was asked to text 7539 with a fee of 5,000 VND/SMS to receive the verification code. I was quite surprised by Zalo's new account registration fee", Ms. Thanh shared.

Similarly, Mr. Quoc Huy ( Da Nang ) commented: "The fee of 5,000 VND is not much, but Zalo gives the reason "the system is busy" to force users to send SMS messages and lose money, which is not good at all."

“They confidently boast that their system has tens of millions of users, but using the excuse that the system is busy to force users to spend money on texting to the switchboard is really unreasonable. It would be more acceptable if Zalo boldly announced that it would charge a fee of 5,000 VND/account for new registered users than using such tricks,” said Mr. Van Thanh (HCMC) indignantly.

According to Tuoi Tre Online ’s investigation, Zalo has started charging users for registering new accounts in recent days. However, instead of clearly announcing it, the platform has used a trick to force users to text to mobile service numbers to receive activation codes and lose money.

Many users are upset about Zalo's above-mentioned approach because in the press release on February 5, this platform still stated: "Zalo is a free messaging and calling application on mobile phones and computers."

Tuoi Tre Online has forwarded users' inquiries to Zalo and is still waiting for a response from the platform.

Zalo currently has 77.7 million regular users

According to the platform's announcement, Zalo currently has 77.7 million monthly active users, with 2 billion messages exchanged daily.

Zalo was first launched in August 2012. After more than a decade, Zalo now covers 63/63 provinces and cities (including remote areas and islands).

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/zalo-thu-phi-nguoi-dung-tao-tai-khoan-moi-20250215110400982.htm