[shripadk]

The first thing you need to fix is sending spam messages on behalf of a user to other contacts on his/her list. Here is a typical example that was automatically sent from my phone to a contact on my list without my consent:

"Happy Dussehra! Join hike this weekend & get a festive bonus of Rs. 51 free talktime on joining. It's 5 times faster with 10 new features. http://hike.in"

I'm thinking of reporting this to relevant authorities.

[suhastech]

I totally agree with you. It was such a nuisance. I uninstalled the app 5 minutes after installing.

Also, after the hike fiasco, I kept getting callbacks from many of my contacts that I had given them a missed calls.

Very shady. I don't even know how they do it. I thought it was illegal to pretend as another mobile number.

[shripadk]

The funny thing is I don't have their app installed. I have 2 Lumia phones that I use only for testing websites (no apps installed) and I have no idea how Hike was able to send messages via my phone to my contacts (have only 2 contacts on that phone). I haven't investigated it yet but looks like they were able to use some Windows related exploit to send messages on my behalf.

[quickdraw46]

Ditto, I've installed and uninstalled hike a lot of times because of this. Guess they care more about growth at the expense of retaining normal users. Most people use whatsapp for 'timepass' and whatsapp groups. And not real communication.