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| Are pay dating sites worth it?
Posted: 11/23/2008 12:57:46 AM | Got divorced 20 years ago and found the old singles paper ads where you mailed a dollar and a photo with your reply a great way to meet ladies. Then technology moved up to single paper ads with voice mail...same great results. Then the Internet and met some lovely ladies and had long relationships with Match and Yahoo. Now...it seems pretty much a bust. Maybe due to spammers...tougher for me living in a very rural area. But still have met lovely ladies who want to meet half way, or come visit the scenic area I live in.
Biggest hassle I have with online pay sites is their "automatic" renewal using my credit card number. No clue why folks put up with this. I found out the hard way how difficult it can be to stop the automatic billing and to get a refund. Only way to do it now seems to be to sign up, wait a few days, then cancel...apparently you still get the days you signed up with...at least that's what the site operators say. Just not ready to trust them again. So glad POF is here. | |
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| Are pay dating sites worth it?
Posted: 11/27/2008 12:27:49 AM | depends ive been there with rsvp and match.com and mate1 but igave those sites away ages ago cause they were expansive but i can tell you i had better results then what im having here on pof i may reconsider going back to paiddating sites as of yet cause the response on pof are preety not what i execpted and you dont hear from anyone and i think the woman are here are preety picky what guys they prefer to date rsvp i can tell you i didnt get much results on that one when i was on there at the time ive been to mate1 was fair but i thought there were alot of scammers thereand same with mate1 ive came to pof now but those other sites i really never got to meet them cause they were to far away from australia | |
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| Are pay dating sites worth it?
Posted: 11/30/2008 3:52:35 PM | What I have found about paysites is that membership is important.
I can't verify exact data, but I think match is huge and much larger than POF or possibly any other dating site. I have had most of my success on match. Larger cities and larger dating pools overall work best for me.
E-harmony was not successful for me at all. I had no way of telling whether the profiles were paid or even real. In fact, I even got some honest info that women were able to sneak into their profiles telling me that they weren't paying and couldn't reply even if they wanted to.
Yahoo personals has been recently successful in getting me dates. I found quite a few professional women on there that seem apt to communicate and meet in person.
In short, why not try more rather than fewer? Unless of course you are just dead set that one particular site will fail. The only reason I am not on a lot of dating sites is that many of them are just too small and I am a big proponent of the numbers idea in dating. | |
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| Are pay dating sites worth it?
Posted: 11/30/2008 5:15:44 PM | White Scorpion is right on about membership being important. It's important at ANY pay site. If people on pay sites don't pay, they can't read email or respond. Yet, they are allowed to show a profile. That is the scam of pay dating sites. There's no way to determine who has paid, hence you don't know who is really there and can respond.
Over at match, you can search for women, say, 35-45, and 32 pages of profiles will come up, with I think 16 or 20 per page. If you review those profiles, you'll see that many of them haven't been active in one week, three weeks or three months, etc. Those are essentially dead/defunct/non-paying profiles. What's left would seem to be the current profiles, but you cannot determine if they are paying members or not. So you're writing those people with the hope that they have paid. That's the guessing game and scam of pay sites and the explanation for low response rates, especially compared to POF.
Based on my experience on Match five years ago and on my experience with this free site, where response rates are 10 times higher (at least 50%, compared to 5% at Match), I would say that half of the profiles you see at Match are those of non-paying members. Yet it's still the most popular site.
Now, when is the last time you went on any online shopping site, paid for your item via credit card, never received the item or any explanation of what happened and never had the charge removed? Never! So how does Match get away with it? | |
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| Are pay dating sites worth it?
Posted: 12/1/2008 12:51:03 AM | Doesnt matter what site if its pay or not pay i found out that most of the pay site the women get to posta free ad and men have to pay other than e-harmany. But i think the real story should be why are people going online looking. My answer is its called being lazy and easy to look people up online than to go out to a local bar n grill and try to meet. Well i too am glad there dating sites up. since thats happen its easyer to meet women in bar and grill places. most of the dudes players are spending there nights writing text scripts to find easy targets. if this is not true then why is it that alsmost every other womens profile say not looking for one night stand or no players please.
that is my answer to why pay or non pay sites dont work. The truth of the matter is its better in the real world than to try to compeat with all the players and sex freaks online who are winningthis battle against us good people. | |
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| Are pay dating sites worth it?
Posted: 12/1/2008 2:49:55 AM | once i signed up for eharmony during their 3 months for 1 deal. my god what a bunch of dead weight that site is. the matching protocol sucks, their profile format sucks, and the nobody ever does anything with their matches except to occasionally close them out. it's awful.
i also tried match.com and did meet a couple nice people through that. this was 3-4 years ago. i gave it a go recently and it was a big waste of time & money. i think if you want try a paid site, you should live in a major metro area. also, be aware that if you go to match.com and your account expires, they will send you fake emails just so they can take more money out of your pocket for nothing. boy i was super-pissed about that, and i let them know about it too. that's just plain evil of them.
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| Are pay dating sites worth it?
Posted: 12/4/2008 5:17:43 PM | | Some are, depending on what type of person you are. I think pay dating sites you get more people actually interested in relationships instead of just random dates. These people are so motivated for something they would pay. Certain sites have certain motivations and the types of people you find on there. | |
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| Are pay dating sites worth it?
Posted: 12/4/2008 6:02:08 PM | | Lostintheshuffle, that is the perception the pay sites want people to have. But the reality is that anyone can put up a free profile on those sites and appear to be there when in reality they are not. I would agree that those who are there and actually paying would appear to be more serious and motivated towards finding one person. But you don't know who there has actually paid such that they can respond to you. How this scam of free profiles on pay sites continues I don't know. | |
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| Are pay dating sites worth it?
Posted: 12/27/2008 8:08:25 AM | | I've tried some of the dating sites you pay for. I would have thought that if you are both paying for the service, then you'd find more people that were serious about dating and avoid some of the players. Not true. They were a waste of money. And you have to be careful, some of these dating sites are a waste of time and money. I had been seeing the advertisement for Santamatch.com on here, so I thought I would check it out. They advertise somewhat like Eharmony, where you submit your profile and they do the searching/matching for you, to save you time. I decided to try it. Much less expensive than Eharmony. After a month on that site, they had only sent me 7 matches. Six of which had not even been on the site in over 3 months! And the only thing I had in common with most of them is that we lived within 50 miles of one another. They claim to have "tens of thousands" profiles to match you with. I did decide to try to contact a couple of them, but no response. And I found it odd that not one single guy on there ever tried to contact me! So I complained to them and asked for a refund. Their response was that there are no guarantees and they "encourage" members to do their own searches!! I realize there are no guarantees, but they are not living up to their end of the deal. Plus, I noticed many of the guys on there were also on POF. So I could just contact them thru here if we were a match. Fortunately I paid thru paypal, so I filed a complaint with them for false advertisement and failing to provide the promised service. Still waiting to hear the outcome. Has anyone else tried Santamatch?? What did you think??? | |
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| Are pay dating sites worth it?
Posted: 12/27/2008 8:48:39 AM | AVOID eharmony at all costs it is a scam (100%)
One of my best friends made the mistake of giving it a try for one month. He said it was awful !
The profile they allow you to have is really sparse compared to POF.
1.They don't even provide you with a simple mailbox.
2. Even if you only want to meet some one within 3o miles or even within one hundred he still received matches from women in other countries.
3. He told me that over 90% of profiles he tried to click on were no longer available ???? yet they were still listed as members ??????
Stick with POF it kicks all other sites A$$E$ !!!!! | |
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| Are pay dating sites worth it?
Posted: 12/27/2008 3:29:18 PM | Up until about 4 years ago, I had a lot of luck on paid sites. They actually worked. Had dates more than often. Though I usually met the woman that shared the same interests and compatibility maybe my 3rd choice of contact. Worked well unlike using dating sites today.
Back then I didn't know much about free sites. The only free sites I saw were a bit lame and not many people on them. Your really not going to find a more active dating site that is FREE like POF.
POF tops the free sites hands down, even though I haven't had a date from it in the two years I've been here on and off. The same people are on all sites lately. Everyone is broadening their profiles on other sites. Again, the problem is that 90% of the people on other sites as a paid member can generally be found here.
Don't waste your money. The forums is a better avenue to make at least friends here even if you don't get dates or corrospondances.
Okay I have no facts to the 90% comment.....just sayin'. | |
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| Are pay dating sites worth it?
Posted: 12/27/2008 4:34:01 PM | On pay sites, I had no one looking and no responses.
Here, lots of people are at least looking.
And my reply rate is prolly close to 90%.
First contacts received is higher than first contacts sent.
So, even though I'm still here and still single, this works for me. | |
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| Are pay dating sites worth it?
Posted: 12/27/2008 4:54:09 PM | To be honest, I had more success on the paid sites. I met most of my men friends through Match, Lavalife, and Alt.com.
Even though I hated the idea of paying, there is a slightly different philosophy prevalent on the paid sites. People who are paying are, for the most part, looking for someone to hook up with rather than just talk about it. That's because, myself included, I'd like to meet someone, get off (pun intended!) and lose the site completely (and therefore, stop paying).
With a site such as PoF, there isn't the same incentive to meet someone quickly and quit, and a lot of incentive to continue to hang around and chat in the forums. How many times have we seen threads start that read "my SO has been dating me for 6 months and is STILL on PoF - why??"
On the paid sites, guys seem to put together more coherent, to-the-point messages, and none of this "Hi, how's it going" unimaginativeness.
Namaste....... | |
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| Are pay dating sites worth it?
Posted: 12/27/2008 5:11:23 PM | ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
And yet, here you are!
Maybe that rush to get off of the pay sites isn't all that successful afterall?
I'd rather take my time and find someone that is, more than likely, going to be right for me.
Rather than rushing just to find SOMEONE!
Besides, I'm more into putting that money into the date. | |
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| Are pay dating sites worth it?
Posted: 12/27/2008 5:21:18 PM | ^^^^^^^^^^
As if I was judging you based on your pic???
Some people grasp at straws in an attempt to defend their lack of logic!
Bet that you went lookin at my profile for ammo too! | |
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| Are pay dating sites worth it?
Posted: 12/27/2008 7:51:49 PM | I think the paying sites work better for the younger people-there are a lot more younger ones on them - up here anyways.
I tried eharmony 3 yrs ago - absolutely hated it. Unless they've changed, you had to pick a few lame questions of the prefilled ones to send to a potential match. They had to answer them and then pick a few for you to answer. Then more questions. It could literally take as long as a month before you even reached the email stage.
I'm on Match and have had some luck with that one. I've yet to meet anyone through Yahoo...eventhough I've tried it a few different times. Singlesnet has got to be the biggest waste of money of all of them. There are no search parameters - just mileage wise - that's it! And they bring up the age they think you'd be interested in! I'm 47-they bring up men aged from their mid 40's to their late 50's. Sorry..not that I'm interested in much younger guys, but I do like to check out the early 40's and its impossible.
With Match...they touted that money back guarantee for a while - if you hadn't met your match in 6 months...but I've yet to ever hear about anyone ever getting a refund. I know I haven't!
OPie...Chemistry.com is from the makers of Match. Back when it first came out, you were allowed to join for free. To date, every man that comes up as a potential match is also on Match.com...so really - how useful is it if you already belong to Match?
Someone mentioned that only men have to pay for paid dating sites-I wish! There was one I came across years ago (can't remember the name) but its the only one I've seen where the women were allowed to join for free. Most paid sites charge the women, too.
What about those sites advertising all the 'wealthy' men? Do you really think they'd take the time,cost & effort to screen their members to ensure that they're wealthy? I doubt it!
There are all kinds of scams on those pay sites.....Not just the Russian girls/men in Africa but where you receive emails after your membership has expired which are obviously bogus. I read something here on POF a few months ago in one of the older threads about that - where it was written in their fine print that it may do that.
I spend far more time on POF than I do any of the others - put together....but sadly for me...it has to do with the forums....not dates ...but the forums make POF worthwhile in any event.
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| Are pay dating sites worth it?
Posted: 12/27/2008 8:38:22 PM |
Bet that you went lookin at my profile for ammo too
Nope. With that hawt screen-name I decided that your ad is probably one of the pearls of mediocrity better suited to "the Best of Craigslist...."
No need to mess up my cache over that........
Tootles! | |
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| Are pay dating sites worth it?
Posted: 1/2/2009 11:41:39 AM | I think any dating website is what you make of it and what your goals are. Meaning are you looking for dates, friends but not screw buddies, or are you looking to just chat on the forums? I also think that all dating websites for men we have had to compete with men whom are still married quite often and several other men who already have girlfriends which skews the numbers game for us the single men. For success, we all know that the most successful men online are of course going to be the alpha type males (men whom are naturally good at attracting women) That's life though, you either compete or lose.
I had the most success making friends through the True website. It was easy to go into their chat rooms and make tons of friends. Many of them I am still friends with years later. As far as getting dates are concerned, I had one date from their website and she turned out to be a fantastic date for one month. Too bad she still was dating her ex-boyfriend as well. lol Also, my fault for not having the necessary skills/tools to out compete him. Probably the most absurd thing I saw on True was people getting naked on web cams at 2AM. I thought that was uncalled for because any kid could steal their parents password and log in as their parent and look at all of that. True really needed better chat room monitoring. I reported both men and women. True like most of the other websites had a big men to woman ratio. I think there was thirty men for every one lady in my area on True. Oh yeah, and they are suppose to check and make sure that people aren't married. I remember this one player guy was still married. He was one of the most amazing players I have ever seen on online, he would go into the chat room and at least ten women couldn't wait to chat with them. I tried to tell them that he was a player but they wouldn't believe me. Turned out he was not only still married, he was wanted for a crime as well. So True didn't do a proper job screening.
I met a few ladies from yahoo personals several years ago.
Match and e-harmony I thought both were jokes. Especially e-harmony, I laughed when it said that I didn't match up to ANY woman in their entire database! Gosh I would e-mail 100's of women on Match and I would get little response. Granted, I was and am an average looking joe but figured I would have had more responses.
Chemistry which is Matches competing site to E-harmony was a nice surprise. I received several matches on there and several women wanted to contact me. Hmmmm maybe my photos and profile was a lot better on chemistry back then? lol taking notes for when and if I date again. Unfortunately, I didn't have the money back then to continue with Chemistry. A couple of attractive professional women in Austin were contacting me, but I was looking for work at that time.
POF: POF is probably the greatest free website ever and it completely blows away most if not all of the paying websites in my opinion. At least on POF, the ladies will write you back even it's just to say hi or thank you. Not always of course, but they seem to write back more than they ever did on the paying sites. However, that being said as stated earlier it really depends for men what type of male you are. Alphas will always have more success and get the most replies back. Kudos to POF for making a wonderful free website along with fantastic forums!
I never tried Lavalife or any of the others. I agree with some of the other posters who stated that offline is the best way to go for men at least. When I do decide to date again, I probably will try the lock and key events for singles were you can bypass the online profile marketing game. Good thing about those events is that they are half/half lady to men ratio. If I ever became truly desperate, I would attend a dating boot camp for men or go to the Ukraine. lol | |
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| Are pay dating sites worth it?
Posted: 1/2/2009 12:19:19 PM | If you want to be deterred from pay dating sites, here are two powerful links:
http://www.find-a-sweetheart.com/blog/C39/
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-truth-about-online-da&page=4
You will find a quote from a former match higher up about unpaid profiles. Granted, it should be taken with a small grain of salt, as she started her own site and is no longer with match. But I do think these numbers are accurate. Why would anyone pay to join a site where only one in, say, 10 or 15 persons is a paid member who can read your email and respond to it? I would even bet that the ratio skews even higher as to women, as they don't need to be aggressive and don't like to shell out cash to get dates because they can get them anywhere. Perhaps this is the reason why I got somewhere between a 5-10% response rate when on match five years ago while getting around a 50% response rate here, where everyone can read your emails and respond. | |
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| Are pay dating sites worth it?
Posted: 1/2/2009 12:47:29 PM | I was on a paid dating website that "finds you the perfect match"
I received an email from a guy who lives in his parents basement, worked part-time at the pizza place down the street from him, and he plays video games all day/night. Sounded like a teenager and he wasn't! | |
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