AnotherFriend

What a disaster, this website is corruption personified. It boasts of having thousands of members but from my experience, most of these are fake as there is no limit to the amount of profiles one could have. I got caught in a scam on this site, I stupidly gave in to ' a widows' request to share my email address and phone number only to be plagued by scam texts and emails looking for money from lots of 'widows'. I complained to Anotherfriend and got no satisfaction, they emailed to say they were aware of a scam but felt they had dealt with it in a timely manner. They literally don't care what people use the site for once they pay up and it certainly doesn't help when they hide behind computer screens as it is not possible to speak to anyone. It is by far the best kept secret of internet corruption in Ireland. They rope you in by offering you discounted membership but "overlook" to let you know that they will continue to take money out of your account once they have you credit card details. And BEWARE to those who go on the site from their mobile phones - I know of someone who was a standard (had cancelled her subscription) member but had been a premium member in the past and when she zoomed in on an item on the home page of her account, a window appeared "thanking her for upgrading her membership". It was not her intention to become a premium member but because of the poor site lay out she tapped on the upgrade function which is incredibly close to the inbox (I wonder why) and because they had stored her credit card details from previous, she was caught to pay again. OMG, keep away from the site, it's atrociously corrupt.

This is presented as being an Irish website with an Irish audience and after two years of periodic experimentation, I've happily concluded that it does exactly what it says on the tin. It's very Irish and completely beyond my comprehension.

Much of the experience is overtly superficial, with photographs being of prime importance. The women I corresponded with were only too happy to meet up for drinks (*yawn* can the Irish relate to anything else BUT drinking?) with remarkably little discourse - a real bonus for foreign interlopers looking to get an easy leg over, but business as usual for those of the prevailing faith. For those hoping for a meaningful, more cerebral exchange of thoughts and ideas, forget it. This is strictly for the wannabe night club scene who either cannot afford the cover fee or who think themselves too old/unattractive (not necessarily one in the same) for the real thing. And before you blurt it out, yes, I did use the site [off and on] for two years.

There are various "benefits" for the paid-for Premium membership plans, however all amount to hollow refuges for those with too much spare time on their hands or whom are sorely lacking in the social graces. Again, if you're Irish nothing will appear amiss. Much of the discussion and chat room antics assume the same strained, pigeon-English banter that one cringes at every time a foreign national (Australian in my case) walks down this country's streets or through its various public places. Honestly, I had to ask people to decipher much of the crude slang and rephrase it in basic English.

Am I being overly critical? No, I don't believe so. I have no doubt the Irish love this sort of thing and given that there is definitely a predilection to Hibernian vernacular, custom, culture and society, it's sure to be a success amongst the Irish themselves or those with a sympathetic understanding and/or affiliation with this region.

I was wondering if I should leave this review, as most of my own impressions and experiences are echoed by others. AF is a finance generation engine and very "Irish" from top to bottom. I gather the bulk of users aspire to be on reality TV shows, or are 40-ish plus, find it difficult to meet decent single folks, and so earnestly give a try. It's at that point you're rapidly guided to parting with cash and the hits just keep on coming after that.

If you write anything remotely articulate, you're branded a pompous twit who is probably English. I'm neither British nor Irish, and honestly had difficulty deciphering all four sentences (on average) of text speech, before meeting for drinks was proposed. Apparently, the promise of alcohol consumption in surroundings so as to give the impression all attendees are in some way intelligent and cultured, obviates the need to actually know anything about the individual sitting across from you. A good photo will probably get you laid … eventually. Just keep offering to meet for drinks, wear main-stream labels, have a decent job [read: any job], pretend to like soccer, and you're probably in.

I'm being severe as there is also a small population of sincere people, though the digital meat-marketeers vastly outnumber them. I was silly enough to sign up for the Premium membership, only to fall foul of its automatic renew "feature". The only way you can unsubscribe from the site's payment plan is to contact customer service directly.

There's a great movie called "Idiocracy", and I can't help but wonder that if services such as AF are how the modern day hipsters establish ideals, meet [for drinks], and invariably procreate, the future may be now. That's both frightening and disturbingly accurate.

Agree wholeheartly with the tirade of bad reviews. It really is a grubby little site with absolutely no concern about people meeting anyone they might have something in common with. The various characteristics your asked for are superficial and the search function is useless as a result.
I use external search engnes to search the profiles for key words. But it is really dissapointing how few people have pride enough in themselves to actually put anything unique about themselves.
The message boards are beyond trite and inhabitated by people who really should learn to control the impulse to fire off replies to everything. It is not uncommon to see every thread replied to by the same individual.
The site generates several hundred blank profiles every day. Obviously someone in AF is sitting with a large dictonary and pulling differnet words.So take the "boast" of the site as having a large membership with a grain of sand.

The repeat billing is a pain as is the spam.

The message blast function on the site is really really bad. It allows someone to send a message to hundreds of profiles at one time. It really is an offensive item.

Overall the site is a complete travesty, it shows not a single ounce of humanity. It seems to believe that relationships are little more than commodities which it is there to exploit. There is no feeling that this is anything but a crass business with zero interest in the actual people on the site.

I'm posting here because any comments like this are instantly censored on AF