Jeremy P.

Writing this, I did some confirmation research and have already found the limitless trove of "Zoosk is a scam" almost anywhere you can Google it. I'm posting it anyway because I've written it already.

What gets me is why hasn't the main stream media outed this yet? This would be a great Dateline investigation piece.

There are two main indicators that Zoosk is a largely fraud-operation running scam:

1. Is the monumental disparity between the amount of messages/attention/potential (fake) profiles you are presented with before you pay, and the complete lack of all aforementioned AFTER you pay.

If the amount of attention a user account with no profile information or even a picture gets 10 emails in it's first week, with no profile and a picture, then how is it that once the profile is filled out and a picture is uploaded those magic emails suddenly drop to nothing.
Does Zoosk really think people believe that people are so desperate that they've resorted to spending their daily time on Zoosk writing emails to and wanting to meet someone based solely on a username and an age? Also, how dumb does Zoosk think that people are to believe that people are really interested in contacting completely un-filled-out empty profiles, when there are thousands of already filled-out profiles are at their disposal?
If after you've paid, you can barely get a person to read your email, if a person who is willing to reach out to a completely unknown stranger for no apparent reason, then critical *critical* logic should follow that they are literally willing to accept ANYTHING as a real match.

2. They rely heavily on faked feedback loops. Feedback loops are when you get a "Like" or a "Comment" on Facebook. It keeps you coming back for more. Zoosk relies heavily on this pseudo-psychological element to whet your appetite. At first they'll flood your completely empty un-filled-out profile with people who are interested, then interest drops dramatically after you fill out your profile. "What happened? Did people just decided that they didn't like me? I have to investigate. I need to reach out to more people!" - proceeds to contact 300 profiles. Unintentional or otherwise, this is how it works out there.

These are things that keep people coming back to the site: "Did someone like or reply to my email?" Zoosk manufactures a ton of feedback loops saying, "A person has viewed your profile."

Everyone has to "view" whichever/whatever profile Zoosk decides to throws in their face. It's literally not an indicator of anything. If anything else, they saw your picture and thought they'd look at your profile based on age and location, since that's the only thing they have to go on anyway.

If you do the "Search" option, you are automatically presented with profiles, which you are now viewing. How Zoosk decides if what constitutes as a "view" is anyone's guess, but they've now turned you into "a potentially interested person."

These are not true indicators of any kind of real interest, especially if they're not followed up by any kind of real follow-ups. Zoosk feeds people's false hopes by telling people that people have viewed their profiles. What's worse is I think that there are probably some poor souls out there who actually believe that this is some standard way of flirting on Zoosk, and think that people are just being coy or playing hard to get. "I need to pursue this person harder! Oh! I know! I will buy them a gift!"
I wonder how many real matches resulted from some poor schmuck chunking out coins on gifts resulted in an actual date.

It's very common knowledge that guys who buy women things first, convey that they have no value and have to spend money in order to get women's attention. What's even more cheesy is the flip side of that, is if after you've gotten to know a girl on Zoosk and you buy her one of those one-bit cheapo digital gifts, then you really seem bogus. If you've gotten to know her, dude, show some originality. Buy her a REAL GIFT. Not some cheesy dating site unoriginal term of endearment. Some girls say they like guys to buy them a drink and some are telling the truth, but to be quite honest it's more of a test to see if you're "just another one of those guys who'll just buy me things."