Geoffrey J.

I'm a younger guy who has a strong interest in older women, so I bought into the hype and (very foolishly) paid for this site's services on not one, but TWO separate occasions. Both of my 3-month runs of CougarLife were frustrating on many levels.

I'll begin with the worst: the "credit" system. Upon paying CougarLife's crazy membership prices, you're given a certain amount of credits that you use to send first messages. This means that as soon as you sign up, you're already restricted in the number of people you can contact. Once you're out of credits, you can't send icebreakers, meaning you must spend MORE money to get more credits. Adding "gifts" to messages (meaningless pictures of shoes, flowers, etc.) usually costs more than the message itself, and it didn't seem to increase response rates in my experience. The only woman I successfully met with told me that she didn't have to pay a cent to use the site - that men are the ones paying for everything, which I consider sexist and unfair.

Fake profiles are abundant, especially with 20-somethings that are either scams or cam girls (strange that they are allowed on a dating site explicitly intended for younger men and older women). My inbox is full of the "flirts" that these profiles send every day, and they just keep coming. In addition, the site fails to say when people who logged in longer than one week ago were last on - you could waste precious credits on accounts that may or may not be active and never know.

CougarLife didn't let me delete my account when I asked for it, too. I first had to cancel my subscription, but when I clicked "cancel subscription", it refused to do it and told me that it will renew as scheduled! That is pathetic, and indicative of a very poorly-run site. Canceling a subscription means calling them or sending them an email, as though that was too hard for users to do.

There ARE real older women, and they are fairly obvious to distinguish from fakes, but they can be difficult to reach or speak to, depending on what it is you're looking for. Most seemed to want real relationships versus a one-night stand, so fair warning to men who want a fling and not much else. Guys who are either teenagers or in their younger 20's don't seem to be what many women on CougarLife are looking for, so that was difficult for me, a 23-year old who wanted casual encounters.

Overall, the site is poorly run, is full of scammers, has a horrible messaging system, and is overpriced. And the worst part is: it's the only semi-legitimate dating website for cougars and cubs that I have seen so far. The rest are even worse, if that can be believed, so this is what you're stuck with if you don't want to use a conventional dating site (eHarmony, OKCupid, etc.). Avoid this site at all costs. If you really want to use it, be prepared for the worst.