SpeedDater.co.uk reviews

Absolutely awful! The people were boring and so was the event. Went to one of their "sosial parties". Speed dating was at 8pm, the only reason I went to the party. I came to the speed dating area at 7.59pm and was told it was full and it had started. How ridiculous. Was told to book a later speed dating session. No way I was gonna sit alone in a corner for 2 hours waiting for the next speed dating session, so I left. I contacted customer service and they were rude and just had ridiculous excuses not to refund me. I was there 1 hour and was bored as hell! Waste of time and money! Very poor organisation. And rude staff. And boring people. No point going.

I've been to a couple of the events and they have been fun. However the website is unusable as a dating site as it is full of scammers and webcam girls looking for business. The Speed Dater people haven't responded to my emails and don't seem to care about the problem. Don't pay for access to the website, go along to the event and get a telephone number from the person you like. Waste of time and money on the website.

Event the speed dating event are a SCAM. They hire pole dancer to pose as fake singles. They lie about what they do and tell you they will tick you yet you never hear of them again.
I googled the picture for one of the people and saw her "acting/modelling" profile.

What a CON.... AVAOID THESE Guys at all costs.

The actual speeddating night was ok and to be expected, but when you get a match and you submit your ticks, you have to carry on messaging your matches through the website? Why cant you just get a mobile number of your matches, i know, so they can grab more money off you!

Its a con because if your 1 month subscription runs out before you get to the point of asking for a phone number, you cant carry on messaging your match unless you pay for another month? I also don't like the fact that you have to sign up to internet dating when you've signed up for speed dating?

It just feels very messy, i wont use them again.

the whole experience was really bad! just to pay for the event I had to call 3 times the customer service. They changed room and instead of being in a nice one we were in a ugly and small room without air con. Few of them apparently cancelled the profile before having the chance to rate them. Few of the girls thought some of them were actor, and in fact they had no profile! I am arguing to have a refund! Terrible! Definitely to avoid!!!

Went to an event in Reading last month, and...

Positives:
1. Some really nice people there, had a fun evening and several of us found a date
2. The host was a lovely chap and made a clear effort to ensure we all had a good time
3. Had a customer service issue with Speed Dater (for another event), got in touch via email and social media, and was impressed by how quickly and satisfactorily it was resolved

Negatives:
1. £20 feels quite pricy for what it is, considering all that happens is that you're sat at a table for three minutes with your date and rotate round. That's it - no ice breakers or anything to make the mood more romantic etc.
2. The follow up process was a bit confusing - you need to log in the following day to tick who you want to see again from the event. This was mentioned during the event but with all the people you meet gets a little lost. Several of us who went together didn't receive the follow up prompt email for some reason.
3. The website is fairly basic (and you need to use this for the post-event follow up)

Verdict: Worth giving it a go, just remember to log in the day after your event and post your ticks...!

Paid for a singles party with Speeddater in London and a speed dating event. There were very few people and the guys were really dodgy and desperate.
I logged in on their website and they charged me the following months for a subscription I never intended to sign up for. I tried to get my money back and they claimed that I had accepted their "terms and conditions"
I ended up calling my bank and canceling my card to stop the monthly billing.

I visited a few events organised by Speeddater,but the results are poor due to badly organised system,:
First Complaint:You have only 3 minutes,this time is not enough for normal chat:
Second Complaint:Some events a too noisy and overcrouded
Third Complaint:After the event you have to go back online to tick the girl you like,and many girls dont even go online and do not tick anyone,as they forget or change mind next day.
Forth complaint:Events organised as friendly chat ,there is nothing romantic in there,co the events are not fit for purpose
Fifth complaint:Useless friend match column ,as much better if just "yes" or "no" field

PS.I think this event would be much better if the manager collected the sympathy cards after the event,and if the "yes" ticks coincide ,just sent phone number to the persons with mutual sympathy,so they could directly contact each other without middleman websites and memberships.Thanks

I went speed dating with a friend and then signed up for the minimum membership so I could chat to the 'girls' apparently trying to contact me. It ended up signing me up for six months with a platinum membership for 59.95 pounds . I emailed them with them promise which they said I was supposed to get a response back witin 24 hours. No reply. So I called them and the rudest girl who could barely speak English handled my call. Even the phone line was very scratchy. I asked where she was based and she said Edinburgh. But the phone line was terrible and accent was eastern European. I called back and same style robot to speak to, only this time male. No chance to get my money back here. Total crims.

Watch out for the scam:

You can only see your "matches" after the event when you go online, the service is for 1 month free and automatically they will enroll you on a monthly payment fee of £19.98. When you call to complain they already now what the story is and the scam so they will tell you it was on the T&C and will be ready to cancel your subscription straight away.

A band of thieves for average events

This website is a total scam! Sadly I have got to agree with the other reviews. I paid 24 pounds for a speeddating event where there was twice more women than men. The event went on anyway and they refused to give me a refund. To add insult to injury, they charged my debit card on the following month. After reading internet reviews I called Visa to cancel my card to prevent further debit card charges. My advice would be that if you want to be part of an event, you should pay at the door after you have checked how many people turned up and pay cash to avoid Cupid ripping you off.

(1) There are thousands of complaints posted on the internet against the websites owned by Cupid plc (which owns in particular speeddater.co.uk), not just on sitejabber but on all complaints websites, just showing how hated the company is.
Customers from all over the world complain about the same recurring issues: recurrent billing, fake profiles, deceptive emails and chats from Cupid's staff, rude or inexistent customer service, lack of refunds, abuse of personal data for commercial purposes, deception

(2) The BBC and the Information Commissioner Officer (ICO) have received numerous complaints against Cupid from deceived customers.
BBC Panorama aired a documentary (Tainted Love: Secrets of the Dating Game) on 29 July 2013 largely targeting the commercial practices of the company and the ICO has launched a formal investigation against the company. The documentary is available on YouTube and stats show that hundreds of thousands of people have watched the video so far.
A reporter for the Kiev post under cover and applying for a job for Cupid in Kiev denounced as well how employees are hired to deceive customers.

(3) Cupid plc's share price (LSE Ticker: 4NJ498 / ISIN: GB00B4NJ4984) is currently at its lowest ever at 56.6p per share (26/11/2013). This is to be compared to its highest of 250p per share in September 2011.
This shows that investors have no confidence whatsoever in the company and are shorting the stock.
If you consider the proceeds that are coming in from the sale of the casual dating business in July 2013, it means that the company is valued at less than cash or cash equivalents. This effectively means that the continuing business has less than no value.

(4) Looking on a website such as Alexa providing free information about websites and showing internet traffic stats and metrics shows that cupid was ranked 5000 in the top visited websites early 2013. It is now ranked as low are 70 000 proving how customers have learnt to avoid the company's products.

THINGS HAPPEN FOR A REASON. It is hard to believe that this is all a pure coincidence or bad luck. The information provided above is all in the public domain and can easily be checked online.
If a business model is not sustainable, its commercial practices questionable and client consideration extremely poor, then the business is bound to die. This is rule number one and this is just fair.

The two single positive reviews on sitejabber from Samantha C. and Helen W. obviously originate from Speeddater's staff and aim at regaining customers. This is another pathetic deceptive scheme. This company is a joke.

Attended the London singles party on Saturday. I went along with my 3 friends and we had great fun, it was well organised and very busy. Really loved the venue and the hosts were friendly and helpful! The normal speed dating sessions were a bit loud but there was like 300 people there so i guess that was to be expected. Highly recommend!

I can't believe these bad reviews! I have been to 3 different companies and by far these guys are the best, which explains why they hold the most events and busy ones too. Good quality of people, good venues. The last London party I went to was absolutely packed - hunderds of people. Definitely not a scam, definitely give them a go.

I signed up on those Cupid plc websites in the past. It's a scam and let me explain their modus operandi. Most of the decent profiles are fake. They have profile images picked up from the Internet (and you can confirm this by reverse looking up the image on Google). It is definitely a fraud scheme. You will receive a lot of emails from many genuine-looking people till you sign up (all the content in the email will be hidden, the profile image of that person will be so tiny that you wont discern anything). Every day you will get an email you are popular and you should pay them money to contact people, all fake and obviously bots!

Once you sign up, these emails from seemingly real people stop coming. You can also notice that the profile images are photoshopped or fake (because they now let you see the bigger image). Most of the traffic that lands up in your inbox now is spam, sent by the website itself. They also automatically sign you up on their many sister websites (cupid.com, girlsdateforfree.com, datingforparents.com, uniformdating.com, loveagain.com, maturedatinguk.com etc) and you start getting the same type of spam from them, all begging for you to sign up. Horrible extortion scheme. I am sure there are better ways of making money than playing with people's emotions. The profiles of the people are not genuine at all; they are all fake people who have posted their profiles. Messages before you sign up are definitely fake and bot generated.

After reading the post by mikw m. on this forum and watching BBC's
Panorama programme "Tainted Love: Secrets of the Dating Game", I decided
to check this website.

I was surprised to see that for speed dating events occurring in London
in three weeks time, there was the mention "Hurry, there are 3 people
looking at this event."
I decided to focus on an event occurring in a few days and to monitor
the number of people looking at the event according to the website.
I have refreshed the page on various occasions and the number of "people
looking at the event" oscillated between 3 and 6.
After all it was around 10pm in the UK and the event was taking place in
London so I thought this may be plausible.
I then checked at 4.30am GMT on the same night (week day) and there was
then 5 people looking at the event!
I found this quite suspicious.
I have then done the following experiment. I browsed the website using
my iPad: 3 people were supposedly looking at the event. At the same
time, I used my laptop, removed all cookies, and click on the event
detail. I have done the same with my iPhone (Wifi off). I have also
phoned a friend and asked him to click on the same event details from a
different IP address.
I refreshed my iPad session: there were still 3 people supposedly
looking at the event. I have closed my browsers on my laptop and iPhone
and asked my friend over the phone to do the same. I immediately
refreshed my iPad session again: there were still 3 people supposedly
looking at the event!
Then I knew there was something dodgy.
It seems that this is another Cupid plc trick to let potential customers
think that the website is active and that they need to "hurry" to pay to
secure an event. It seems that those numbers are randomly generated by
the website and are unrelated with that actual numbers of people
browsing the event.

Booked and paid for a Speed dater event on their website speeddater.co.uk, which indicated "women sold out" when I got to the event there were 20 men and only 5 women and I was told that my place in the event was cancelled ("as I was 2 years older than the age range of the event", looks like the real reason is that they had so many men and only few women that it was unworkable). Refused to give me a refund and had the cheek to charge me a monthly subscription for their website. It turnout that this is another Cupid PLC scam