The positives: great idea, good site design (lots of features, easy to navigate, etc.)

The negatives: the fake profiles, poorly conceived monetization model

I have been a paying member for a few months. I don't fault the company for wanting to get paid for offering a service, and if I end up finding a good roommate, then paying the subscription will have been worth it. I should also add that I'm not extremely desperate to move immediately, so I wouldn't say it is the company's fault that I haven't yet found a roommate (maybe? More on that later). I have had conversations with definitely real people, and I am sure that I would have found a roommate by now if I had been motivated enough.

The above being said, I must admit that it did take me a while before I realized that the attractive people with cheap, nice rooms being offered are fake profiles and this probably lengthened the amount of time I have spent on the site. Sad to say, if a room/roommate opportunity being offered looks too good to be true, then it probably is. After a while, it becomes easy to spot them because you see the same pictures being recycled. As a person looking for a room, these fake profiles REALLY make a given area look WAY more affordable than reality, which is deeply frustrating when you gradually have to come to the realization that they have created an unrealistic expectation in your mind of what is possible. By the time you realize this, you've spent weeks chasing (unbeknownst to you) fantastical impossibilities.

Also, I have no idea why these fake profiles are on there. Is it an effort by 3rd parties to collect people's personal info? Or is it, as some other reviewers have guessed, an internal effort by roommates.com to get you to subscribe and to lengthen the time you stay subscribed? I'm honestly not totally sure. Before I realized they were fake, I messaged a few of these fake profiles, and I never got a response. I don't appear to have had an uptick in spam either, so I have no idea what's going on with the fake profiles. Here's what I do know, roommates.com REALLY needs to fix this issue for the customer experience to be greatly improved.

Furthermore, while I wouldn't consider this next idea an absolute necessity for them to get a 5-star review (unlike the issues I described above), I do think this next idea would take them from good to great. When you are talking to a potential match, there's a bit of a lack of understanding on both people's part of just exactly how to go from interested to moving in. For example, you make a match, and then you say a few words back and forth, but then what? Roommates.com as it is currently implemented is super focused on matching people but that's pretty much where it views its job as being completed. If the site could work more on helping users navigate the stretch between matching and sealing the deal, I would think that would significantly improve the value they would be providing to users.

Finally, I strongly encourage the company to consider moving away from a subscription model, to a commission-based model where they only get paid when and if they find a match for the "seller" of the room. The monthly subscription creates a really perverse incentive for the company. I'm not saying that the company absolutely IS being motivated by this incentive, but literally no customer is on here loving each additional month it is taking to find a match. So the company wants longer subscriptions, but each additional month is one in which the users are becoming more and more unsatisfied. If instead the company moved to something like a $150 commission paid by the person with the room once a contract is signed, then it really would highly align the incentives of the company with those of its users. Some might object and say that there are some logistical hurdles that make this monetization model unrealistic, and to them I just say that those are hurdles that result from a lack of imagination. In fact, if, as I described earlier, the company moved more towards helping its users all the way to completing the transaction, then I would say these logistical hurdles would mostly be solved.

For starters I found a large number of the listings to be fake/lab generated BOTS. The bots bait you by sending you a message and in order to read the message you have to pay.

MANY DATING SITES DO THIS. AT several of those you get emails reporting that such and such wants to meet you but if you try and verify such a member there is no such account.

As far as CLASSIFIED posting sites, some of them have where a property owner/as lister, pays the fees, and others have where the searchers pay the fees, by apparently this site CHARGES BOTH SIDES.

I found myself in a really serious need for a space to live and found this site which claims to be totally free. I have been far less than impressed.

YES creating an account and posting there is free BUT EVERYTHING ELSE COSTS. NO YOU CAN SEND A MESSAGE AS A LISTING POSTER OR LISTING SEARCHER BUT NEITHER ARE ALLOWED TO READ THE MESSAGE WITHOUT PAYING A FEE.

I once did a research investigation about online dating and found that MANY OF THOSE SITES ALSO USE THIS BOT BAITING TECHNIQUE. I have read that such is rampant. A. I. Is largely running this and creating money sites out of software.

If you look around the room mates site, you will see most of the accounts have NO FOTO and you can not even read their bio information/situation description without paying.

At some point it just doesn't pass the sniff test and if you persist in trying to work with it IT ONLY GETS WORSE.

NOTE: I AM FINDING VIRTUALLY NONE OF THESE SITES ACCEPT PAYPAL.

WHY? Because paypal can intervene quickly in case of a dispute and reimburse the paypal payment account. These sites are most likely covered by a provision that makes challenging the charge via your credit card very difficult.

A couple decades ago in Atlanta Ga there was a gentlemans club where business guys would go for lunch but they all the beverages would be spiked with a disorienting drug so that EXCESSIVE CHARGES COULD BE PUT ONTO THEIR CARDS. Most would have simply disputed the charges as not legitimate HOWEVER it was discovered that certain types of charges are NOT SUBJECT TO DISPUTE and the feds ended up involved under RICO RACKETEERING clause.

I feel strongly that the charges these sites are making against your credit cards are in the same exact grey area.

NOTE 2: BEWARE THAT ALL THESE SITES WANT YOUR BANK ACCOUNT INFO AND/OR CREDIT CARD INFO BUT MANY ARE NOT ACTUALLY GOOGLE SEARCHABLE.

I am having people send me room mate finder site links FROM ACTUAL ROOM MATE FINER SITES THEMSELVES! I get a message that I need to pay an application fee and they will call me and schedule an appointment to meet me and allow me to see the room/space.

So you click the link and find that all the links redirect you to sites that are not within the google search engine.

I have not paid for my message box access at roomates.com so can not verify this is happening there, HOWEVER I have found this at over 1 DOZEN OTHER PREMIUM SITES SO FAR and have to only wonder why would this one be different.

I suspect that the entire room mate finder industry has given over to BOT TECHNOLOGY and are ignoring the fact that there is an actual and bona fide market for just being an honest service.

SUMMARY
----------------

Any person at any time may be entangled in a need room/place to live situation. It is STRESSFUL at best and in many cases its almost an emergency issue that is displacing some one to create the need to begin with. THAT SAID, under that mind set you are not focusing on the fairness of the site but only on finding a room.

THAT MAY BE THE WORST PART OF THE ENTIRE THING, it is built around taking advantage of peoples hardships.

BUYER BEWARE.

You could end up with an email like this... names change, but dad's email is the same. Do a search on it. FAKE FAKE FAKE. They will send you a cashier's check which will bounce when deposited. They will show up and try to rob you. They won't answer your questions when you email back. AVOID!

Kate Jenny
Jan 17 (2 days ago)

Hello P******,

Thanks for getting back to me. My full name is Kate Jenny Im 29yrs old.(FEMALE) I was born in CHINA Beijing I speak both language, my Dad is from US while my Mum is from CHINA I went to Beijing University Of Technology china and I graduated last year in Beijing University Of Technology. Im fun loving, personal, friendly, clean, caring and respectful of others. A non-smoker, dont do drugs but I drink occasionally, am single and have no children. I go to church every Sunday. I am coming for my masters degree, am presently on research work at Guam, but will be coming to the state for my master degree in February/March I would have loved to call you but this is a remote area calls is hard to go through from here and I dont want to waste much time. Im really interested in renting from you, I would have loved to see it but am very far, with pictures I will really appreciate it. I really want you to tell me more about yourself and if you have garage or parking space because i will have my own car coming over

Am writing to confirm if you still have the room available for rent... If YES, Kindly reply the following questions below:
1) I will like to have the description of the room, size, and the equipments in there.
2) I will like to have the rent fee per month plus the utilities.
3) I will also be coming with some of my furniture, electronics that is if it is allowed, like bed, book shelf because I read a lot, shoe rank etc
4) I will also like to know if you accept Cashier's Check or Money Order so that I can contact my father for the payment. Is responsible for the payment.
5) If the 4 questions are YES, I will like to know the total cost for the initial move as in first month rent plus utilities and if deposit is necessary.
6) I will like to know the major intersection
7) I will like to know as well when the place will be available and how long you wish to rent it out.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Respectfully,
Kate Jenny.

Reference: My father lives in Illinois, Chicago and you can contact him to find out more about me, And here is the cell phone # *******595 you can only text him to reach him at and his name is Ronald Cole and here is the email address in case you choose to write him (*******@yahoo.com). He works as a site manager for a construction company in Chicago.

Very helpful

Scammers and poor quality tenants pool.

What crap your website is. Thanks for nothin.

I had good experiences on this site previously.

I love you roomster website, its helpful website for rooms&aptartmentshere