Trevor W.

After an absence of over a year I decided to try POF one more time. Having used POF over the years I fully understood what to expect and now that I've come back nothing has changed for the better.
As a male I can only speak from a male's perspective but I believe my experience applies to females as well.

To begin, don't believe that this site is "free" as they claim. There is nothing free about it.
After signing up and creating my account, which included posting a few photos, I understood that if I am going to contact women I will need to purchase credits in order to send emails. Up until now you could purchase "tokens". They offered 1, 5, 10. The more you purchased the more options were available to you. I usually only purchased 1 in order to send messages. As of today POF has inserted additional membership packages which cost much more. You are now able to pay $11.50/month (8 month plan), $14.41/month (4 month plan), $20.00/month (2 month plan). POF proudly boasts that these payment plans offer you a long list of additional bonuses such as: "you can see whether your email was read or deleted", "highlight your profile so it stands out", and my favorite, "This upgrade more than doubles your chances of meeting someone". Tell me, what if no women reply to your emails? Now you have double the chance of meeting the same women.

Now, my time and experience on POF has demonstrated all of the following.
1. Didn't I see your photos somewhere else?
Many of the profiles on the women's side are fake. How do I know this. If I'm suspicious of a photo I will copy it and send it to "google image search". I immediately discover that the photo/s were pulled of a porn site and posted on the profile. This proves that that there is no security or validation system on POF.

2. Why are you hiding?
Many profiles do not show the woman's face. A large percentage of women simply post photos of sunsets, their pets, wilderness scenes or even their shoes. Why? This is a dating site, not a shopping catalog. POF offers a "report member" option but they refuse to deal with photo issues. Clearly, not posting photos of yourself is acceptable with POF. If anything, they encourage it by not dealing with the issue.

3. Are you there?
Most women will not reply to your messages. They claim (in their profiles) the following:
"if I don't reply to your message it's because I don't feel we are a match".
Hmm, very classy approach. Considering that men have to pay to use this site you would consider that the decent thing to do would be to reply with a simple, "thank you but no thank you". Not on POF. Most emails you send will not be replied to. In fact, instead of taking a moment to reply to your message the women will sooner block you from contacting them again. How do I know they block you? It's very easy to discover. All you need to do is send a second note to her and as soon as you press "send" a message pops up, "this member has blocked you from contacting her. Please try somebody else." Nice, huh?

4. Hey, where did you go?
Now that you paid to use the site and send messages you will quickly discover that many women have put up a blocker which prevents you from contacting them UNLESS you upgrade to the next package. What package? The monthly subscription I told you about at the beginning. Keep in mind, most women don't reply to begin with but now POF is trying to force you to upgrade (spend more money) in order to get ignored even more and at a higher monthly fee. Very honest site, huh?

5. Who are you?
At the top of the page you have all of your options such as, "meet me", "search", "my matches" etc. There is an option titled "viewed me". If you click on this option you will see a long list of women who have viewed your profile, but, the profiles and photos are all blurred out. Why? If you want to see who the women are who viewed you then you must, get ready for it, PAY an additional fee. Wow, what a surprise. You can now spend money to view the profile of a woman who didn't have any interest in contacting you to begin with. I say; why not and go for it. It's just money.

6. I have a secret admirer?
Now that I have paid my full $2.25 membership fee I am a full member and can send emails to women. On a regular basis I receive the notification: "this woman is interested in meeting you". Ooh, somebody is interested in me! Yeah, sure she is. Here is where the lies and scams come into full light. I will be notified that a "woman is interested in meeting you". Ok, if she's so interested in meeting me then why won't she send me an email? Why do I need to contact her instead?
Based on what I've read online so far, women get to join for free and use POF for free so if that is true then why doesn't she simply send me an email? I suppose because it's meant for me to pay an additional fee and in return I still won't hear back from her. Could it be that POF is sending these fake notices and trying to get me excited enough to spend more money for something that isn't real? Do you think that may be what they are doing here?

7. I'm sorry I can't compliment you.
Be very careful about wanting to compliment women on this site. Even if you take the time to write something well thought out and respectful you can still end up getting your account deleted if the woman considers your compliment to be offensive. In fact, don't bother commenting on anything apart from your interest in chatting. Telling a woman she looks nice or has a very attractive figure may get you banned within 10 minutes. It should be noted that many women post rather provocative photos of themselves with the focus being on chest shots. What do you think she's advertising with photos of that nature? Play it safe and say NOTHING.

8. So, how much do you earn per year sweetie?
Many women are clearly just digging for money. They describe their ideal man as being:
-well established (rich)
-men who enjoy to travel (in other words, the man pays to take the woman on a vacation)
-drives a nice car
-has a house (don't even think of telling her you rent an apartment or you'll be tossed like an empty soda can)
-men must look like they belong in a high fashion magazine (many women make it clear that you need to be a perfect 10 if she is to meet you or even reply to your email)
Ironically, many of these same women look like they fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. In fact the following happened to me. I connected with a woman from POF and met for a drink. I thought she was very attractive and wanted to spend more time with her. I quickly learned that she didn't have the same interest in me because I was renting an apartment instead of being an owner of a house. She told me that she wants to meet a man who earns a six figure income instead of being with a man who earns an hourly wage. The insulting part was when I discovered that she was living in the basement of her mothers house with her two sons. She clearly didn't want a man for a meaningful relationship but rather a rich man who would "rescue" her from her minimum wage job and give her a house and all the perks that went with it. Do you think she was a gold digger? I certainly thought so but then again, I could be wrong.

9. I have very high standards.
Many women will clearly write, "I am highly selective in who I want to meet". I've seen the same women on this site over the years which tells me two things.
1. This particular woman has serious personality issues.
2. The photos and profile are fake.
You get to choose which one you feel applies to the given profile. I keep asking myself, how is it that such an attractive woman is still single after over 10 years and now she's so depressed (according to her profile) that she can't meet a great guy. Hmm, what could be the problem here? Could it be that she's unpleasant, rude, arrogant, self centered, egotistical, superficial, or, could it be that her profile is a complete fake? Your guess is as good as mine. Here is a hint. Most women expect the man to look like he stepped out of a fashion magazine before she replies to you. On the flip side, most of the women look like Cinderellas step sisters.

10. Can you lend me $5000. 00 please?
I receive messages from women on a regular basis who live outside of the country and each time the ONLY message is, "hey". When this happens I know that the profile is a scam for money. The person on the other side initiates a conversation which instantly moves to her being in need of cash. My reply to this? I block her.

11. You live where?
Be very alert when you receive a letter from a woman. I always look at the city she claims to live in. Sometimes the city is one I've never heard of and I need to google it to find out where it is. Many times it's some tiny remote community in northern Canada that can only be accessible by plane. At this point I start a conversation just to see how far the person will go in convincing me that they are a legitimate woman. I'll ask them how far they live from the beach and they will say "20 minute car drive to the coast". Yeah, ok. Bye.

12. How old is your photo?
There are many very old profile photos. How do I know this? Some 10 years ago POF placed a watermark on every photo that was posted on their site. The watermark stated "plenty of fish". They ended this practice at least 10 years ago and many of those photos are still being used on profiles so you can only imagine that the woman in the profile is at least ten years older than what you see. Remember, this site has been around for 17 years so the photos with that watermark can be that old as well.

13. My camera doesn't work.
Yeah, many women do not post photos of themselves. Why not? They claim that looks don't mean anything and that they are suspicious of men who want to see their photos. They will tell you that if a man must see a photo of a woman then he's just a phony looking to play games. However, the first thing they will do is click on the man's profile to look at his photos. Why is that? This is how they decide who they want to talk to. If the man can't see her she feels she is in complete control over the situation. What legitimate dating site encourages women to NOT post a photos of themselves? This is just another red flag warning you to avoid POF.
True story. About two years ago I ran across a profile of a woman that I wanted to contact. She replied back to me and we started chatting. I asked her where she was when her photos were taken and her reply to me was unexpected. She told me, "those photos are not of me. I found some photos of a woman who looks like me so I posted them instead. I wanted to keep my identity private." What?

14. Thank you, come again.
Once you purchase credits you are able to send emails but be aware, you are limited to how many emails you can send per day. POF does not inform you of this catch until you are subscribed. Once you send the limit that they permit you are now forced to wait 24 hours before you can start sending again, UNLESS (guess what you need to do?) yeah, purchase an upgraded membership package which of course is going to cost you a monthly fee.
This is not a fair system. If anything, they have structured it to suck as much money out of your pocket as possible. Would I call POF an ethical site? No I wouldn't. This is not a dating site geared to helping you meet somebody, rather, it's a site designed to maximize profits for the company and in return maximize the stress levels for you.

15. The Russians are coming.
Guys beware of the Russian girls. Most of the Russian women are looking to move to the West and they will do anything in their power to get a man to help them. They will tell you how wonderful you are, or, how close she feels to you from your correspondences. Watch out! They are trying to get you to sponsor them and once they arrive they will use you up and toss you away as soon as they get what they want. Don't become another victim. This also applies to Russian woman who have only been here for short time. They come across as very demanding and they expect you to play by their rules or you're gone. Do yourself a huge favor, stay away from them. It's not worth the suffering.

16. Upgrade to contact me boys.
Some women's profiles are restricted to men who upgrade to a monthly membership. Why? I have no idea. I keep asking myself, "why would a woman insist on the man upgrading his membership in order to contact her? How does that benefit her?". It makes no sense at all. The only reason I can think of is that the profile is fake. What's the difference between having a basic membership compared to a monthly subscription? None. Either way you are still sending her a letter and hoping for a reply. I have already found numerous profiles using the same photos. If there are multiple profiles using the same photos, well, common sense tells you these are fake profiles which are only being used to lure men into the site so they can pay to contact these women.

17. Your political views offend me.
Yeah, politics has become a very touchy issue. Some women use politics as the key to meeting her. Look, I'm not a fan of politicians so that means I don't support anybody in particular. I can say I'm neutral on the issue. With that being said, most of the women are liberals and if your views challenge hers then you're immediately blocked. If you get into a disagreement on politics then the site itself tends to ban you citing, "your opinions or comments were unacceptable and violated our terms of use." Really? POF will ban you because your political views made a woman cry? I thought this was a dating site, not a political forum.

18. We're sorry, the number you have reached is not in service.
My absolute favorite feature is, "messaging disabled". Yes, women can now block men from sending emails to her. Why? Again, I have no idea. Their profile remains visible and free to view but you cannot send her an email. My question is this. If she doesn't want men contacting her (for whatever reason she may have) then why doesn't POF automatically hide her profile until she permits emails again?
As a PAYING member, I expect to be able to send messages to the women I see on this site. Wouldn't you? What is the purpose of leaving your profile up for all to see but not allowing men to contact you? That's like going to the grocery store where all the food is on display BUT you are not permitted to buy anything. Where is the logic in that?

This is just a short list of my personal experience with POF and as a result I do not recommend it to anybody. Have I met any women from this site? Yes I have but the majority were not worth the time or effort. Most of the time I have been stood up and lied to. I will end up driving for almost an hour only to find out she chose not to show up and failed to call or text me to inform me about her change of mind.
If anything, this site is just about scamming money from you and not much else. You're better off going to the book store and trying to meet a woman there. There used to be a time where dating sites were focused on helping you meet somebody. Today, they are all about profits and nothing else.

Update: As of Sept 2020.
I stopped by POF to glance over their main page and to see if anything may have changed over the months. To my surprise they are having a special promotion. There is a huge special going on now where you can join and send letters to women for just. 21 cents. Yes,. 21 cents. I thought to myself "you can't give up this deal" so I joined just to see what has changed.
To my surprise, very little. POF has changed its format in how they present profiles. In other words, they moved the photos around slightly and polished up the visuals but not much else. I started to look over the profiles and quickly discovered how many fake profiles exist now. How was I able to determine they were fake? Many of the profiles have only one photo of the woman and those photos are ALL from the chest up. These same women look no older than 25 yet the age stated is on average 43. Also noted were the profile descriptions of the women that don't say very much about themselves apart from, "I'm looking for a nice guy" or, "contact me". Just for kicks I sent one of them a message asking if she'd like to stop by and chat? I received a reply two days later insisting that I send her my cell # so she can "get to know you better". Yeah, sure.
Other profiles of extremely young looking 40ish women sound like they were written by Mark Twain. The profiles are just unbelievable. Here is an example of one.
"I am searching for a kind hearted man who endeavors to nurture a relationship. I become excited thinking about the adventures that await me in the future. I enjoy thinking about exotic trips to Somalia and the far east where I can experience the great wonders of this magnificent world and then pen my experiences each evening as I admire the love of my life standing by the window glancing towards me with the setting sun on the horizon..." Really? Who talks that way?
It's almost nauseating to read these profiles.
POF has gone one step further to manipulate their site and added countless fake profiles to lure people into throwing their money away. If I was asked how many fake profile would I guess existed from what I have noticed so far, I would easily say 1/3.
As before, please stay away. It's not worth it.