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.

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.

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.

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 A couple have withdrawn (which is fine; I didn’t expect that everyone I was interested in would be interested in me).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.

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.

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.