Is Chemistry Cheating with Pittsburgh Match.com Males Profiles?
Posted by BlueEyes1962 on 14 Feb 2008 at 11:07 am | Tagged as: Not As Advertised, Pittsburgh Observations, Scams
Cathy Day writes about her experiences with Chemistry.com in this excerpt from her book, Comeback Season: How I Learned to Play the Game of Love:
My credit card bill drops through the mail slot, and there’s another $99 charge from Chemistry.com. How can this be? The last time I talked to them, I said I wouldn’t be renewing my membership. So I get on the horn with Chemistry.
“How may we help you today?”
“Yes, I’m calling about an incorrect charge.”
The customer service concierge looks up my account information. “I see that you were charged for another three-month membership.”
“Yes, well, I called you guys a few months ago to complain about the lack of response I was getting, and at that time, I told you I didn’t want to renew my membership.”
The concierge explains that this is not the proper procedure to cancel a membership.
I ask, “So calling customer service and saying, ‘I don’t want to renew,” isn’t the right procedure?”
No, it is not. Apparently, when I joined Chemistry in July, I agreed to their automatic renewal terms. Apparently, I was supposed to cancel my membership online, not over the phone. And I cannot cancel my membership now, today, and receive a pro-rated refund. There’s a deadline after which you’re locked in for the full three months, and that deadline came and went—two days ago.
The concierge says, “Also I see that, since the automatic renewal went into effect, you have used our services.”
I laugh. “No, I haven’t.”
“Yes ma’am, you have,” the matchmaking concierge insists. “I see here that you logged in a few weeks ago and communicated with a Robert?”
Robert the Gambler! I forgot about that. I wanted to ask him a dumb question: “When you say that a woman must love to gamble, do you mean that literally or figuratively?” The answer—literally—is going to cost me $99.
“Look,” I say, “I wouldn’t have logged in if I thought it was going to cost me anything. I assumed you were giving me free time on my membership, like you do for men.”
Silence. “Ma’am, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I would like to ask you one question. How many male members do you have within a twenty mile radius of Pittsburgh?”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have that—”
No! Strike that! How many ACTIVE male members do you have within a twenty mile radius of Pittsburgh?”
“We don’t have that information available.”
“Oh, but I’m sure you do! Somewhere in that computer of yours, I’ll bet you know exactly how many men use Chemistry in the Pittsburgh area. I’m a consumer, and I deserved to know that information so I could decide if I was going to get my money’s worth, because let me tell you, I did NOT get my money’s worth from your service.”
Pause. “I’m sorry you’re disappointed, but we can’t make any guarantees. Basically, we only provide a means for people to communicate with each other.”
“Communicate…with…each…other,” I say, drawing those words out. “Exactly. Look in your computer there and see how many men actually responded to my profile.”
“I see a Rick…”
“Yes, Rick, who informed me that he hasn’t paid for his Chemistry membership in a long time. He told me that he thinks you guys don’t have enough men on your roll to satisfy female customers, so you just keep giving men like him free renewals!”
“No, ma’am. That is not our policy.”
“Aren’t you owned by the same company as Match.com?”
Pause. “Yes.”
“Well, here’s what I think. You guys were sending me profiles of men who don’t actually subscribe to Chemistry. They subscribe to Match.com. You borrowed their information from Match to artificially inflate your rolls and keep women like me happy!”
“No, ma’am. That is not our policy.”
“Why should I have to pay $99…TWICE…when a man doesn’t have to pay anything? That is a discriminatory. You’re taking advantage of women.”
“No, ma’am. That is not our policy.”
I’m so mad, I don’t know what to do with myself. “You’re not going to do anything to help me, are you? You’re going to charge me another $99 and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it?”
The concierge maintains a neutral tone. “There’s nothing I can do.”
“Put this in your computer. When this three-month membership is over, it’s over. Got it?”
“Yes. I’ll take care of it.”
“Good!”
I hang up the phone and scream so loud that my cat jumps straight up in the air. Then I call my mom. “These people…these people!” I stammer.
“Cathy? What’s wrong?”
I tell her exactly what’s wrong.
Mom sighs. “You know, when you started doing this, I was afraid for you. I thought the men you met might turn out to be bad people. But so far, they’ve turned out to be pretty normal. Pretty nice.”
“I know! It’s these snake oil salesmen who’re driving me crazy!”
“They should be ashamed of themselves,” Mom says.
“I don’t think they give a shit,” I sigh. “You know what I’m going to do?”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to prove I was right. I’ve seen guys on Match who I know I saw on Chemistry. I’m going to contact them and ask if they really joined Chemistry or not.”
“You go get ‘em!”
“Thanks, Mom.”
So Cathy – did you contact them? Were they paying for Chemistry.com? Other women I know form Pittsburgh who used the service reported that all their potential matches were from out of state.
I think Match.com is deceptive with their auto-renewal policy. Even if you do not sign up for their auto-renewal, they get you almost exactly the day after your subscription expires by sending fake e-mails from members who delete their profiles after they send you an e-mail. Because your subscription has expired, you can not read the e-mails. After you renew your subscription, you find out the profile has been deleted by the sender of the e-mail. It took two expired subscriptions before I realized I was being scammed. I do not have a paid subscription with Match.com now, but I receive winks from females 10 years younger than me from out of state, who happen to delete their profiles after they have winked me. If you are interested in someone, you would never delete your profile after you winked or e-mailed someone. What a scam!
Speaking of internet scams that comment that seems like a compliment from “Aaron Wakling” is a fake post which is duplicated to almost every blogger on the Web. My friend got the same thing on his blog. Search on the name and you’ll see what I mean. The name is phony and it links to a commercial “credit repair” and high-interest credit card site.
As far as rip-off paid dating sites go they’re ALL crooks. Screw’em. If everybody would sign up on dating sites like Plenty of Fish which is completely free the commercial sites would go out of business. For the Pittsburgh area the rate of males to females on POF is about 15 to 1 depending on age so it NEEDS more women. Sure it has limits like not being able to sort out for education or politics but you can write whatever you want, post a lot of pics, and contact anybody and everybody you want with e-mail or chat. Plus you can check out the forums and find people with a brain in their head. I don’t work for POF or anything I just like them and hate the paid sites.
Yes, I did track down one of the men Chemistry sent me as a potential match, and he confirmed some of my suspicions. It’s all described in the book, a pretty funny scene actually.
Snippycat has a good point: why do people (especially women) go to paid sites rather than free? I think there are a few answers: men don’t feel ashamed and frightened about online dating to the same degree that women do. Women like niche sites like Chemistry because they feel “safer,” and I think Chemistry is well aware that their clientele is mostly female. But female consumers aren’t allowed to ask the company, “How many men subscribe? How do I know I will get my money’s worth?” Why don’t women ask these questions? And why don’t more women report their customer dissatisfaction publicly? Answer: Shame. I think these companies count on that shame in order to make a profit. This is why I put my name on my book and said, “This is what happened to me.” If you refuse to feel ashamed, they can’t take advantage of you.
But it took me a long time to work up the nerve to be able to say that, let me tell you.
A lot of men think there is a male to female ratio is 5:1 or higher on online dating sites like Match.com. I had friendly bet with “Curious” about this and we did an unscientific check by searching for men and then women ages 40-50 within a 20 mile radius of the same zip code in Pittsburgh. There was perhaps 30% more men then women, but it’s not nearly as unbalanced as many men think. I haven’t done the same query on Plenty of Fish.
Now that’s interesting . . . because I was getting promotional e-mail saying that Chemistry.com had signed up too many women for the number of men it had!
Finally decided WTH and signed up for a single month, and so far only one of the women I’ve made active has responded. A couple have withdrawn (which is fine; I didn’t expect that everyone I was interested in would be interested in me). But the striking thing is that from the vast majority I get no further activity, neither progress nor rejection. What I’m guessing is that they aren’t subscribed. Actually, what I’m guessing is that about 80 to 90 percent of Chemistry.com’s users aren’t subscribed, because of the outrageous fees the company charges, so as a result, you have only about a 1 in 5 chance that the people who are being offered to you will ever be able to talk to you at all. So basically, Chemistry.com is collecting a lot of up-front subscription fees from people who get on, discover that there’s no action, and leave again, making the site seem five times as populated than it actually is. We’re paying them to show us photographs. That’s it.
I wonder whether this merits a complaint to the BBB.
A MUST-READ FOR ANYONE SCREWED OVER BY MATCH.COM
I just experienced what many of you have shared: the highly anti-consumer “auto-renewal” feature that supposedly appears in match.com’s contract. Following lollipop’s advice to John, I, too, did the following:
-Called the following number
1.800.926.2824
-Selected 1 for general inquiries, NOT the cancellation prompt, or anything related to complaints
-Got through to Kelly, a rep who politely stated that the auto-renewal policy was part of the contract to which I agreed
-Made Kelly aware that I am a legal assistant for a major local firm and after discussing the “policy” with my lawyer friends, was urged to take legal action over fraud
- She reiterated the agreeed-upon policy but did say that she would speak to her supervisor about my demand for a refund
- I also added that I want something in writing to assure me that I will not be billed in the future after canceling my account
- Kelly returned and said that she would refund my auto-renewal fee in 72 hours but could not provide a written assurance. I could write to the following address and/or email and try there:
match.com
customer care
po 45272
dallas, texas
75225
executiveteam@match.com
So…I’m not in the clear, yet. I will update to let you know if I see the auto-renewal fee refunded on my VISA statement. The point is that if this works, we have more power than we think. We can get our money back by not backing down and do our best to inform others to stay the hell away from this scam.
Perhaps, we can also suggest places for lonely souls to connect online without paying a cent.
(Follow up to previous post) Fought match.com and won.
They refunded the renewal fee the very same day. Dropping the word “fraud” and threatening to expose their anti-consumer practices seemed to work. Using a VERY stern tone and demanding to speak to the supervisor if the rep couldn’t do anything didn’t hurt either.
Remember, no matter what crap they feed you about wanting to provide convenience, putting the customer’s interests first, don’t be fooled into thinking they care in the least. These are manipulative, unfeeling vultures of human desperation. They don’t expect you to stand up to them.
Best of luck to you all.
So, the women on Chemistry greatly outnumber the men? That’s intersting in that I currently have about 10 that I showed interest in, and I have yet to hear from a single one. I can only assume that they don’t clear out inactive profiles. Either that, or the women simply don’t bother responding.
Another important fact for users of Chemistry.com… the company creates FAKE profiles of seemingly awesome matches and then sends fake “interested in you” messages from those profiles. Of course, if you want to respond, or even take a closer look at their profile (which might give away that it’s too good to be true) then you have to pay for a subscription. Once you pay, you will not ever make a connection with them, obviously, because the people are not real or never had a genuine interest in you, but you are out the cash!
Sucker!!
Advice: Don’t let your emotional hopes of finding a connection cloud your instincts and allow conniving companies like Chemistry.com / Match.com the ability to exploit you.