My ex-girlfriend called me a few weeks ago, her voice shaking. She asked if it was possible to get money back from a website. I asked her what the website was, and she did not want to tell me. So I told her to call the credit card company and ask them to refund the money. She did, called me a few days later to thank me and I did did not hear about it again.
Till last week, when she called me, crying on the phone. She was being sued by the dating website for not paying the fee of a bit more than $800.
(I’m not going to mention any of the websites by name, because they are extremely litigious, and I don’t want it to be said I directly accused any particular company of scamming. You can use the quotes I include here to discover the websites or use the search term “elite” to find the sites)
I’m going to describe the techniques that these websites are using to squeeze a lot of money out of people with a service that gives them nothing in return.
Get the right customers in
These websites advertise themselves as dating “for the elite”. They plaster the web with advertisements, and in some European countries they have billboards and are advertising themselves in TV. By focusing on the “elite” they attract people who likely have money. Their adverts feature 30-50 year old professionals, a class of people that are not as used to the internet and its danger as other younger people.
These websites are not using viral growth or word of mouth, because they basically don’t want new customers to learn how the service works from old customers. They want new ‘untainted’ people each time.
Get them on the landing page, get their information
The person arrives on the page, and she is asked to sign up with an email address. That’s all that is required for now. If the person leaves at this point, every second day, the person will be emailed with various headlines like:
- Don’t give up so soon
- Attractive singles are just a click away
Make a profile for them
Once the person visits the page, they are asked to do a personality test. This test is followed with some questions about the person. However, these are NOT free-form fields! The person has various options to choose from that do not allow variance in how ‘attractive’ this person would be to other people. For example, one of the websites gives these options to the question “how attractive are you?”
- Extremely attractive
- Very attractive
- Attractive
There are no other options. The list of professions you can choose from is fixed. There is no free-form field. Why this? This is so that every profile on the site is basically attractive to other people.
Now suck them in
After all that information has been filled out, this is where the shady part starts. The people start receiving emails from very attractive strangers who want to meet them. The problem is – they cannot reply to the messages unless they subscribe. Handsome men keep writing them emails, and they just can’t reply. Here a quote from a complaint board:
“Before submitting my credit card, I received at least one email per day. Eventually, I had over 40 emails, none of which I could read until I paid the fee. I finally decied to take the chance and paid nearly $200.00 for a VIP membership. As soon as I began reading the messages, I realized that they were all generic. I responded to nearly all of them, as I wanted to test my theory that this is a scam. Many of my responses contained my personal email address, so that they could communicate directly with me. I did not receive a single reply. T”
There are many different variants. Another variant is that that customers are made to “welcome” new customers by sending them an email. But these emails are obscured, you can only see this:
“Very Attractive woman 3km from you sent you a message”
Because this lady previously selected herself as “Very attractive”, the website is not lying when they use that headline.
Make them pay big money
After being badgered by these emails for a long time, people will take a chance and pay for the site, hoping to meet all these attractive people. But there is almost nobody on the site, just a bunch of fake profiles and people interacting with these fake profiles.
The membership fee is perhaps $30 a month. BUT only a yearly subscription is offered! This is revealed at the END of the transaction. So the minimum cost is 30 * 12 = $360. There is no option to pay $30 to test it out. Because obviously, nobody will use it once they have paid. So they focus on the high end only.
And of course, they have a lawyer as part of their payroll so whenever anyone disputes the charge, they are immediately sent legal documents. That threat alone will make many people cough up the money.
In two years, such a website grew so big they started running adverts on TV. That’s a big budget for a website that sells absolutely nothing. My ex-girlfriend, she got scared when she received that lawyers letter, and she paid. That’s how much it costs to learn the lesson, was her last sentence before she dropped the phone.
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Very true. It’s scary how powerful some of the old players have gotten. There’s also so many dating sites out there, guess they have to use certain tricks to keep themselves ahead of the game
feel bad for you bro, your gf is on a dating site, willingly couging up her credit card to date other people
You're a moron. You can't read. He said EX girlfriend.
Other sites have gotten sued for fake profiles and fake emails, just a matter of time with this one.
The best weapon consumers have against sites like this is to have your negative reviews come up in Google.I’d encourage anyone with complaints to add them publicly. I had posted a link, but it won’t let me comment with it, so I’ll put one example here: Buyers Vote Dot Com
Sorry she lost her money. Here’s my analysis of the current dating ecosphere.* Okcupid is probably the best current dating site and its free. It’s easy to get laid on there right now.* While it’s not exactly a dating site right now, I think http://www.dirtyphonebook.com could be the biggest dating site down the road because it deals with peoples phone numbers and real personal information.* I think plentyoffish is trashy, I won’t lie. The people on there are trash. It appeals to the AOL crowd. Sorry, that’s how I see it.* Match and the others…..well I just don’t see the point of paying for a dating site in 2010.* Facebook is trying to do some dating stuff, and most everybody is on there, but I don’t think it’ll work too well for them because people don’t want to use it for dating.* Zoosk feels spammy with tons of ads everywhere online.That’s my thoughts.
Unfortunately what you are describing isn’t just for the “elite” sites. A lot of those tactics you describe, especially the fake users, are employed by the majority of the dating industry (old and new).Its commonly known among dating site operators that 50% of revenues come from people that just forget to cancel their credit card month over month. There are very few dating sites out there that provide real social value.
“with an email an email address” should be “with an email address”http://www.emendapp.com/sites/blog.cubeofm.com/edits/1
I don’t get it- your girlfriend is looking for other man and you are okay with it. I’m confused.
There is an “ex-” behind the word girlfriend!
Great stuff bro. And you are pretty sharp, thinking a lot of this stuff through. I’d love to get your perspective on other things, attention to detail is amazing.
I think I know which “elite” website is this. The kind of ads they display like “meet attractive singles in your city” with provoking profile pictures is a giveaway that its all fake. I don’t know these sites are subjected to which country’s laws….the authorities should ask them to reveal their membership data in order to determine the fake profiles.
Post the website URL. Let them come and sue you. Remember that truth is an affirmative defense to litigation.
It’s frustrating that these paid sites are scamming people and bullying them into paying crazy amounts of money for what you can find for free. I’ve been running a free online dating site for just under a year now and doing it honest, without buying fake profiles or spamming and I’m still thousands of dollars in the hole. Sucks to see the scum of the dating world making money by basically tricking people into paying for nothing. Don’t pay for any service like this that you can get for free or from a reputable and well known paid site.
I believe you mean “EliteMeeting.com”, which has numerous complaints about it indexed in Google. If that site has a problem with my publishing their URL, they are welcome to take it up with me.
Bravo Ryan!!!!
“Their adverts feature 30-50 year old professionals, a class of people that are not as used to the internet and its danger as other younger people.” Are you kidding me? 30-50 year olds built the Internet for you douche.
If you’re young and smart, then OkCupid is definitely the only site you should be using. But I can see the temptation of the “elites.” And perhaps some day, an elite site will get it right. The real moral of this story is: Don’t give your credit card number to any site you haven’t heard a testimonial about from someone you trust.
Yea this is crazy cool…
Wow! This can be one of the most helpful blogs we have ever come across on thesubject. Basically wonderful post! I am also an expert in this topic so I can understand your hard work.
Hmm it seems like your site ate my first comment (it was super long) so I guess I’ll just sum it up what I had written and say, I’m thoroughly enjoying your blog. I as well am an aspiring blog writer but I’m still new to the whole thing. Do you have any points for novice blog writers? I’d certainly appreciate it.
Just a word of caution/warning to woman 60+ to not get involved with Cupid.com. I had a terrible experience with this dating web site. First guy was a bit controling as he wanted me to buy a web cam which I did not do. Second guy asked me to buy a play station for his son's birthday – Duh, I don't think so – heck I never even met the guy! 3rd guy was a scammer who took the identity of a real 4-Star General, and then 4th guy was a scammer from Ghanna. The following are "flags" that denote you may have contacted with a scammer:
You met a friend online; You've never met face to face; Your correspondent professed love at warp speed; You are promised repayment upon the inheritance of alluvial good or gems; Your correspondent consistently uses lower case "i's" and/or grammer not in-keeping with their supposed life station or education level.
4 years ago, I joined Match.com and met a number of interesting men. I believe their personality inventory is a good one (similar to EHarmony's, as the sites matched me with 2 of the same men). After 20 months of dating a Match.com gentleman, we married. We were very compatible and our marriage was a good one. Unfortunately, he died (at 53) of a massive stroke 20 months after we married. I'm now 56 and am seeking a more selective pool, so googled "elite online dating;" your warning comments give me pause and I'll ask many questions and ask to speak with persons (not affiliated financially with the sites) for testimonials before making any payments.
Thanks for the info, very much appreciated! It is wonderful that you help your old girlfriend out, says a lot about you!