Ross A.

I've tried a number of dating websites and recently I thought I would give Zoosk (another) try. I had tried it some time back and it wasn't very good. Sadly it is no better and is possibly worse.

I registered yesterday. All looked well, easy to use interface and some pretty ladies. I found a lady local to me that seemed nice so thought I would send a message. I couldn't however do this as I would need to pay the subscription. Ok that's fair enough, you can't expect everything for free. I instead sent a wink and pressed the "added" button which I took to mean she would be added to a favourites list.

A few things happened next. First I almost immediately (a matter of minutes) got a message from her, or at least a notification that she had sent a message (I couldn't read it without a subscription though). Great I thought, this is a really great site, I never got that sort of success elsewhere. I carried on looking through those on the website and sent another wink to another girl. The same thing happened. I started to smell a rat by this point.

Later I noticed that the "added" button I had pressed had been recorded as me sending her a "chat request." That wasn't what I had intended to do so already I am sending out inaccurate messages through the misleading button "added."

I was suspicious that the first girl I had supposedly had a message from was real so I decided to try and google her using her photo. I did actually find her LinkedIn page and managed to send her an email to her work address. I wouldn't normally do this as girls tend to freak out at this sort of thing, but I felt I had a legitimate reason to email her; I wanted to know if I was about to be scammed by Zoosk. The next day (today) I got a reply from her work address and she told me (thankfully politely) that she had not sent me a message and had in fact not been on the site in over a year.

Tonight I tried using the "added" button again on another girl and as before I had a "message" from that person. However looking at the notification on one browser it said the girl had "sent me a chat" and another browser she had "sent me a message."

I am regularly getting all sorts of notifications from various people now which is way more interest that I got on POF. I have read a great number of bad reviews about Zoosk and how it is a scam site. I take them with a pinch of salt as some people expect to use a website and it to be totally free. This is stupid, you can't expect a company to create a service and let you use it for nothing! You will also find a number of disgruntled single guys who have a chip on their shoulder about online dating.

That aside, Zoosk does seem to be a dubious website from my short experience and I wouldn't trust it based on that experience and on the dozens of scathing reviews about the website.

My advice is be critical, careful and suspicious. I'm sure there are some genuine people on there (like me), but you might have more luck elsewhere.

I have subscribed to Match.com a few times. To be honest I really don't like the company, they are almost impossible to contact when there is a problem. I really don't like the way they automatically roll over your subscription even if you only want it for a month. Instead of giving you the option to JUST have one month, you have to remember when your subscription ends and then stop them from renewing it. Awful way of treating your customers! If every company did that we would spend all our time trying to work out how to stop being billed. And Match don't make it obvious, you have to dig through their website to find the option. God help you if you actually want to PHONE or EMAIL them. I had to Google for an email address and even then I just found a contact form. I couldn't find a phone number.

My most recent run in with them leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth again. They advertised for a comedy night event and said that tickets were reduced from £17 to £12 and you could bring a friend. I invited a friend and said I would book the tickets. I tried to pay for two tickets at once but it didn't give me that option. I paid for the first ticket and then clicked on the button to add a friend and ONLY THEN did it tell me it was £17 for the friend. I have a screen grab, I can show you. Terribly misleading. True, Match did say:

"As such please note that we are unable to issue a £5 with regards to the ticket that you have bought for your friend. However you may write us back to request for a full refund for both tickets. "

However their offer of a full refund is not the point, I am annoyed that they basically conned me (and no doubt others). I want to go to the event, what I don't want is to be tricked into paying more than advertised! I want prices to be clear, not misleading and I cannot understand how they could possibly think it was anything less than misleading. Note also that they expect me to "write" to them, I can't phone them, everything is on their terms, forget the customer and how they have been misled!

A terrible way to treat customers.

Just to add to this (a week or so later). Match showed me a helpful little box that said "get your free personality report." Of course they want you to think that it is going to help you broaden your chances with your Match profile by gathering more information for your potential date. What it REALLY is is an UNDERHANDED way to get you to sign up with their sister site Match Affinity! This works just like eHarmony, by your values and interests rather than what you look like. Why can't they just be up front and say "would you like to try our other site"? I'll tell you why, it's because they want to trick you into signing up because that's the only way it looks like they have a broad user base. Downright deceptive. The worst thing is, when you have finished asnwering a LOT of questions they then keep sending you all sorts of alert emails until you turn them off! I had 3 in the space of 15 minutes! A totally crap company!

April 2015:
Here is something else I don't like. You get notifications from Match telling you someone is "interested" in you, but when you look they are listed under "views." Now I don't know about you, but if I view someone, it doesn't automatically mean I am interested! If I look at someone the size of a truck with the face of the back of a bus, does that mean I am "interested" in them?! I think not. Just another devious tactic by Match. They must be desperate, I mean to think that there are tens of thousands living in my immediate area and I must have seen no more than 10-20 on Match! Doesn't say a lot for its popularity does it!