Unfortunately, I saw the following 1 year-old comments after I had already lost thousands on Sakuradate over the past 3 months. I can personally confirm that all of the comments are correct because I have experienced the same problems.
This site is definitely a SCAM. I have paid almost $3,000.00 on this site with nothing to show for. This is the process so that you will know what signs to look for if you choose to waste your money like I did but hopefully, I have done all the work so that you will not incur such cost.
1. You meet someone(s)
2. You start a conversation and begin to interact with the female, (of course I'm speaking from a males perspective).
3. You start a conversation and begin to interact with the female, (of course, I'm speaking from a male perspective).
4. Upon spending approximately $1000 to $1,500 it will cost you another $500 to request her personal contact information.
5. Before requesting her contact information you will have to spend approximately 15 days minimum to get to know her (Sakura Date requirement) as well as a set dollar amount as previously mentioned.
6. During the communication with the female, she will bombard you with letters, videos, and photos that will cost you credits ranging from 10 to 50 which you will have to purchase.
7. The female will continue to do this and once you reach the credit amount to request her contact information it will cost you 500 credits which goes to Sakura Date.
8. At this point she will give them permission to give you her contact information.
9. At this point, she will permit them to give you her contact information.
10. NOW THIS IS THE CRITICAL PART, once you have their contact information,
11. After receiving her contact information the photos, letters, pictures, and even level of communication start to decline or they will stop responding to your emails or you will start receiving messages such as my job/work is keeping me busy, I have a sickness or death in the family, my internet/phone is acting up, my phone stop working and I need to purchase another one, I don't like that you don't trust me, and so on. These are common excuses to avoid messaging you, RED FALGES.
Conclusion: Once a certain dollar amount has been spent on any particular lady there is some form or level of benefit or compensation for that lady, but to what extent I do not know. But the true intention here is to SCAM men out of their money. As previously mentioned based on the amount that I spent, I obviously communicated with more than one woman with the same or similar results. Their goal is to keep you (the man) buying and spending credit on letters, photos, and videos, so they will engage you in conversation attempting to drive you to their letters and push you to watch their videos and not just you but more or multiple other men at the same time. If there are real women on the site with good intentions the majority of bad women will corrupt the site, and that's if the site isn't already corrupted which I believe it is because they are the ones offering the incentives to the females for keeping the men cashing out by purchasing more and more credits.
So in my opinion and experience, this site is a SCAM, don't waste your time or money.

I wont say how much i spent there. Use your imagination. Way too much. I am the king of the slaughtered pigs. I was there for over a year with a woman i genuinely fell in love with. Wont name her. Still love her. I'm probably a fool, but i believe she loved me. Will hold out hope and love her forever. Due to circumstances, and her country being china, we got trapped there. We were able to leave and talk off site once or twice, but it was short lived. Cant share personal information with each other, such as location or contact information, its heavily and strictly censored. Everything there is recorded, filtered and regulated. No privacy period. Keep that in mind when sending and receiving explicit and personal stuff they don't censor. 100 credits costs about 33 usd. Every message of 300 or less characters costs 2 credits each, every short 10-15 second video 50, every letter 30, and every picture 10, and those are censored immediately as well for contact and location information. Even when you finally get permission and send each other contact requests and except them, it will only show the original email you used. Cant update it to reflect a new one to people that accepted, and you communication there is still censored completely. Have to go through Cust support, which can be an utter joke. Many issues with transactions too. It will take money but not give you your credits, had it happen multiple times. Usually they help, sometimes they don't. You can easily burn through 100 credits in 10 minutes just talking to / messaging someone there. The site is utter torture to use and exist on. Feels like a call center for sexting than an actual dating site.no success stories to be found. Mines probably the closest you will find to one. A year later its closest I've found. I finally ended things with her to free us from the place at last. Hell may be a better place than that website. Avoid it. Every girl has a masters degree even at 18-21. Mirror website called naomidate, about 95% same girls, same profiles, to a T, all pictures update at the same times on both sites, all girls online offline at the same exact times on both sites. Im just a fool that fell in love. I would be highly suspicious of any positive comments or reviews about ether website. No proof exists other than words in suspicious reviews. Plenty of proof to suggest otherwise. Owned by the same company out of cypress. Owner keeps his identity hidden. User beware, stay away. Don't be a fool like me, use and actually fall in love on those websites. You will regret it immediately and forever. Also as a disclaimer, and a warning, the girls there all frequently use the tactic of suggesting you meet and talk offsite, its a trap to get you to spend credits. Everything will be censored or incorrect if it isnt. I spent the last half a year studying both sites before i broke things off, investing and trying different things with different people. I give you this review after a year of sacrifice, and suffering this place, only finding i have to accept despair, and give up on a future i hoped for, with a person i loved to be free of it all at last, and to free her. I dont really care what people think of me. If this review saves even one person from this place its worth my life posting it. I wish you all the best of luck and life, and hope nobody else has to suffer that place, or lose someone special they love like that. Also, i cant post any photos or videos without incriminating people. This is not my intention. Research the name of the company that owns the sites and avoid any owned by it like the plague, or uses that credit system. I wont post just in case it gets taken down for naming it.