Dating Website Reviews
I have checked out, reviewed, and have placed an honest profile on several internet dating sites. Most are simply an avenue, for someone to make money off lonely people, who wish to find someone to share their lives with.
We do, however, have the choice of choosing to allow it or not. I hope this information will allow you to make the right choice, for yourself.
Has to be a better way
Personally, I feel that if a dating website was really wanting you to find your match, they would go the extra mile to see that they are doing all they can and not just worried about their bottom line. For instance, the sites that require monthly fees as well as “free” accounts, to view users and their profiles, do not allow the free users to communicate with the paid users. Why do they not give the paid users and option to allow the free user to communicate with them if the paid user sees something about them that they are attracted to. The site is basically useless to the free user and cheats the paid user out of a potential match. Isn’t that what the sites are for, to help you find someone that is right for you? “Oh, this person is perfect for you and you both like one another, but you can’t communicate unless the free user pays first”. The free user may have paid for a subscription on a different site and isn’t about to pay a monthly fee for every site on the net, to make sure they can view photos and read profiles for all the single people that are out there, near or far. Why can’t they give the paid user an option to purchase a certain amount of “free passes” or maybe an option to pay a small fee to allow the free user of their choice a one month trial. This may also entice the free user to pay the regular fee the next month, because they found out how much they actually like the site. So many times the all mighty dollar blinds us and we can not see that giving a little, will often give you a lot in return.
A local dating websitesite that conducts face to face interviews for their clients to find matches and personally get to know them a little, for better insight if someone is a potential match, ruled me out because they knew I could not afford the rather large fee their clients pay. Who’s to say one of their clients that is paying them a large fee wouldn’t adore me, the service shut the door on one of their clients possible matches. Not a very good service. They should at least have people come in, get their photo taken and maybe fill out a questionnaire and if the client likes someone, they could maybe charge a small fee to contact the person and let them know someone is interested, allow them to decide if they want to release their contact info. If someone is paying you a large fee to find them a match, why would you say, “we found you a match, but they didn’t want to pay us to let you meet them”. Now that is customer service for ya’.
I wish everyone would all use one dating website. Sure would make it easier to find one another. There is no excuse not to, seeing as though my first choice on my list, is completely free to use. The least you can do is be on both sites. Your site of choice and the free one. Or better yet, someone make a dating site that will allow you to post a small profile that will allow you to set communication settings you choose. Perhaps with an auto-responder message you can create, that can lead them to the site your currently a member with or just a; “Thank you for contacting me, if interested, I’ll get back to you soon” or ” I only check my messages once a week, I’ll get back with you if I see something that intrigues me”. It can let you view who communicated with you, so you can reply back and take it from there if you wish.
It’s like those carnival rides these days. Their prices have gone up so much, that their rides have a lot of empty seats. The ride still has to run, why not charge less and fill the seats. They would actually make more that way. My kids would not ride for $3 each, but would let them ride for 75 cents each. They won’t get a dime from me. I quit taking them to carnivals, we wait for the county fair and that’s good for the year, for us. If the carnivals would charge less they would be more likely to get some of my money. I’d be more apt to take my kids or allow them to go to more of them if they didn’t gouge the pricing so much.
I had hopes at one time that there was a “great dating website”, I have discovered that this is not the case. I have found one, that stands out above the rest, so far. Due to my budget, I have not been able to thoroughly investigate the ones I have yet to review. One thing they all have in common, people searching for other people.
Dating Website Reviews
Plenty of Fish
POF is by far my favorite. It’s completely free to join and to view profiles. You can contact users, you can read messages from those who contact you. You can view and post photos. Your able to search by filters you choose and can even hide your profile at will and still search and contact members. If you contact someone while your profile is hidden from search results, they will be able to view your profile and respond. I am puzzled why anyone would use any other dating site that is out there and it would be nice if everyone would just use this one website to seek the companion they wish to find.
On the downside, it is like most other dating sites, using generic questions with no avenue to explain your answers. I choose to explain each as a part of my profile. They are rather generous with giving you plenty of room to write all about yourself. I believe people should know why I used one of the multiple choice answers I was given. For example; one of the questions you must answer is; “Do you want children?” Your choices are; prefer not to say, want children, do not want children, undecided/open. My answer is prefer not to say, only because it’s the best choice. I explained my answer in my profile as this. “Do I want children? I put prefer not to say, because I do not wish to have more children, those days are long gone. I have no preference if my partner has children or not. I’m not the wicked step mother type and will treat someone’s child(ren) as I treat my own with the exception of knowing I am “not” their mother and will respect that fact.” This lets someone know that I can no longer have more children, that I do not mind if they have children and that I’m one who can accept their children and respect the love they have for them.
With the exception of the generic questions, that have only multiple choice answers to choose from, (Which I completely understand, it keeps it simple and free.) My top choice so far for a dating website, is POF. They make their revenue from advertising and from premium features some may desire to use, if they don’t mind paying for it. It is the only functioning free dating site I have found. It also has a pretty good app for your phone to keep up to date with the site and activity.
Spend your money on your date, not on the dating website.
eHarmony
This so far is the worst dating website I have used. First to access you free account, you must answer a series of questions, that is quite time consuming. Then once your finally to where you can build your profile, you have limits to what you can say, using only the guidelines they have in place. I believe it is part of their gimmick, their guide to finding your perfect match. I do not believe it works at all and have very little faith that there is an actual system in place that uses all the information you provided to match one another. Again, using generic questions, the same for both men and women and their matching system is not at all accurate. You can not see any users profile pictures if you do not pay and they do not offer any kind of short term options that are within reason. I believe it’s some where around $60 for one month and the payment will be reoccurring if you do not use their guidelines to cancel it. I decided to try their services and sign up for a paid membership. When I viewed my matches they choose for me, (you can not choose or search members freely) I was very angry to see that their filtering system was very poor. Matches that no longer were active still showed up and I had to delete them from my matches, I was unable to contact a couple of them and many had incomplete profiles, which tells me they were not members and simply fell for the sites “sign up for free today” advertising. Matches that were in or near the same town in which I live came back as “a great match who happens to be outside your settings” My settings were within 60 miles. It may have meant he was not meeting all of my filters, but most were set as not that important. I have also found that those who have fear of rejection, find it difficult to initiate contact. This will surly cause a problem, because you are given matches they choose for you and if you do not initiate contact, the match they choose will never know if your interested.
It’s a difficult site to use, but may be perfect for those who are outgoing, have a lot of spare time, enjoy answering questions and do not mind waiting long periods of time for responses. My personal recommendation would be to stay clear of this match making website.
Mingle2.
This is by far the most dangerous dating website to use that I have found so far. It is free to use and create an account. It is however, also filled with scam artists and liars. They are mostly praying on the lonely. They often claim to be widows or widowers, to be in a respected line of work such as, in the military or doctors and often Catholic or very spiritual. I believe it is because they believe Americans will be more apt to trust this sort of person. The photos they use have been stolen off the internet and re-sized or edited to remove wedding rings, notable scars or even to resemble another person’s photo to suit their need to appear real. A big indicator is to meet a well educated American Doctor, who often uses poor grammar, such as “I needs you”, “You so beautiful” ect. Thank goodness translation software is not perfect. It’s a red flag that should not be ignored. These people will also claim to be out of the country or about to leave. Simply stay clear of this site entirely! Much better to be safe than sorry.
OkCupid
This one falls right in with Mingle2. it is full of people phishing and looking to take advantage of single people searching for love. I was on the site for about 10 minutes before seeing all the tell tale signs of BS. Seriously, if you claim to be an american, born and raised in the USA, you just don’t talk like your learning a new language. “You so beautiful, I want to love and care for you always. God leads me to you for reasons”……Oh boy, I’m going to jump at the chance to meet this one.
There are some “real” people on here, but be careful…….don’t go giving out your email address to just anyone too quickly, you might regret it. Rules for these sites are; if they claim to love you before they know you…..run! Do not give out ANY personal information or share photos that they can use claiming they are you on some other website. Yep, they will do this. Make certain they are whom they claim to be!
I do like their Q&A thing. This gives you both a look at an individuals views on several different topics. I do like this feature very much. If someone hasn’t answered very many or any for that matter, perhaps they are a more casual dater or just someone out there that’s really up to no good.
Match.com
I decided to take the plunge and try out a membership on Match. It really is quite frustrating and useless without an actual paid membership. I’m still getting use to how is flows, but do believe having the app on your phone is a must. I like being notified if someone messages me and it’s great to be able to voice text in response. Using both computer and app together seem to be the way to go. I put a notification on my phone to remind me to cancel the membership before I get automatically rebilled for another 3 months.
I do NOT like and will not recommend Match.com to anyone! I hate the way it functions and paid users get very little bang for their buck. This site is geared entirely towards Match getting what they want…..$$$ At one time this may have been a good dating site, but like many things, they have completely lost touch. I believe they only offer 3 month memberships, as their shortest term package, because no one would ever renew for a second month.
The thing I dislike the most is so many “free” users and NO way to connect and you don’t know they are a free or paid members. You send them messages they can not read, they can’t see that you’re interested. Speaking of which, you see photos of “they’re into you” people in your inbox page, but the photos you see are of random users or those who have agreed to be used in advertising. Totally misleading and as far as I am concerned, should be illegal. They will entice you to purchase a membership on false pretenses. When you sign up for a paid membership, you can see who really tried to contact you. Site is also not at all user friendly and there is quite a difference between the app and the actual site. Often if you want to see a profile of someone, you have to do a username search in order to view their profile. Match.com is only after your money, not at all concerned about people making connections. POF is still at the top of my list for dating sites.
Zoosk
After paying for a membership for one month, I quickly found out that I really dislike the operations of this site. Do Not Waste Your Money! Why ione earth does anyone use these sites? Everyone should simply use Plenty of Fish…..it’s free and you get to communicate with anyone that does not have permissions set to “only those with a paid membership can contact them”. Their loss if they want to set restrictions like that or they have to contact free users first, then they can communicate with them.
The biggest problem with Zoosk is similar to Match, you can’t tell if someone is a paying user. This is a big problem for these site, because as a paying user, you want to be able to communicate with the other users and if you can only communicate with other paying users, you need to know who is able to communicate with you. A non-member may like you and it will show up in your messages as a heart or smile, then when you find one you want to get to know, you send them a message and they never reply………..because they can’t! Once again, another website not geared to finding matches for their paying members, it’s all about their bottom line…$$$$.
I do like that you can zoom in on pictures and profiles when using the app. I like their instant messaging format to communicate…as long as you both paid for a membership.
Even with a paid membership you still need coins to access features. You can buy them or earn them by sifting through photos in their Carousel. This feature has a lot to be desired as well. You have to judge by photos and age alone, because you can not see their entire profile, unless you click yes, which can lead the other users to believe there is a connection. It only means they liked your pictures. When you get to read the profile (after clicking yes or maybe) they are in “your connections” and now you can’t get rid of them when you read their profile and find out that they are not right for you. You can not advance to the next picture in the carousel, unless you choose either No, Maybe or Yes. Why would they make you choose with so little information to go on. Again, proof they do not care about people…only money.
This site gets a big two thumbs down from this member. Don’t use this site to find someone special, it’s just not worth it! Still a big fan of POF, completely free and easy to use. Why do people use any other website……they all simply want your money and have no desire what so ever for you to find what your looking for, because if you do, you will quit paying their membership fee.
Oh, and in case your wondering……..the men and women on these “pay to communicate dating sites” are all the same. You have your bottom feeders, players, perves, liars, cheaters, those simply advertising their businesses, people phishing for info, foreign scam artists and yes a few individuals that really want to find someone they can spend the rest of their lives with…equally spread out through all of the websites I have been on. So be careful, play it smart and be sure to read my Safety and Security page by clicking the link below.
More To Come Soon
Millionaire Match (They use virtual profiles to lure you to buy a membership. Says so right in their fine print.
Millionaire Date (Not a secure site)
Our Time
Millionaire Chat City (I like to visit with people, but be warned, there are a lot of people just looking for a cyber sex thrill)
Dating Agency
Be sure to check out my safety and security page to help keep you safer as you search for love. You really need to know a few things before it’s too late.