Don't use match.com for online dating. They mislead and lie.

[Balgus]

From what I remember, Yahoo Personals and match.com were sued for this. Where they would have employees to set up fake accounts and even had some go out with subscribers as decoys.

Plus, they would keep canceled accounts running if they have a couple pretty/ provocative pics.

I've been shopping for groceries for close to 20 years now, and I've never met anyone that way. I think that only works in commercials. Laundry mats are also much less glamorous in real life than on TV

Unless you see it in slow motion...

 

[DerHauptman]

Actualy, AOL is even worse with this. They've managed to track down the new numbers of cards that have been changed and charge them (which is illegal last I checked). Did that to my Fiance several times. They also charged her for her ex's account without asking either (Again, illegal). Leaving AOL was at one point like leaving a gang or the mob, but worse, since they often didn't relent even if you were dead.

Agreed, I got new cards at once point because they were just not listening to me. I lost them so I didn't get a new card just for that reason alone but I figured hell I can finally get away from these (and I used this word) frigging gangsters now since i changed cards (although not accounts). I'll be damned if they didn't somehow charge my new card #, one that I did not give them.

Similar thing happened with verizon. When I switched to their phone service they sent me some crap for DSL. I didn't want or order it so I figured they just auto send it to everyone so they can try if they want to. They started charging me 39.95 for the e-mail service. Since I am a soldier and go back and forth to the Middle East off and on for months at a time I didn't call them on it till 4 months later and they kept telling me I requested the crap on line. I finally got them to take the stuff off. Then they charged me an early termination fee - LOL, for something I never asked for in the first place.

To make a long story short it took me a year to get it taken off and resolved (they kept my like 200+ dollars the whole time BTW). Then the irony of all ironies 3 months later they sent the same kit and tried the same thing. Took me 3 months to get it taken off and resolved that time.

Some of these new things are like frigging protection rackets I swear. It can't be just me. I imagine they do this to everyone - just send it and sign you up. Most people give up after a while and just change to their service. Its like blackmail or a press gang tactic.

 

[Harmon]

Reading all these "I got charged for serves I didn't sign up for, or that I cancelled," seems like something a DA needs to be contacted about, though I have as much hope about that going anywhere positive as I do my chances at winning another lottery.

BBB and Consumer Afairs is aware of all of these, and you are all posting on boards about this stuff to keep others away is there anything else someone can do (aside from the DA idea- cause that ante going anywhere).

Take care all.

 

[Merkuri]

OKCupid

Try www.OKCupid.com. It has ads and accepts donations, but otherwise it's completely free. You don't have to worry about them charging your card without your knowledge, because you don't need to give them a card!

I joined OKCupid a few years ago at the end of my last job. After chatting with a guy (yes, I'm female) online for a few months I went out on a date with him and have been in a wonderful relationship ever since. We just had our two-year anniversary at the beginning of this month and we've been living together for almost a year. Never looked back.

OKCupid works by asking you a series of multiple-choice questions (most of which are submitted by users and approved by the OKCupid staff). You give your own answer, then you select how you think your ideal mate would answer, and then you select how important the question is to you. It then compares your "ideal mate" answers with other users, weights the questions according to your "importance" score (so questions that aren't as important to you don't affect your score as much) and gives you a percentage of how much that person "matches" your ideal mate. They do the same in reverse (compare your answers to the other person's ideal mate's answers) and average the two scores to get your "couple" score. The more questions you answer, the better matches you get. It'll only count questions you've both answered. Generally, scores above 80% are someone you'd probably want to go out with. I believe my BF and I had an 88% or 87% match.

It has a lot of other stuff you can do on the site, but that's the meat of it. And unless they've changed drastically in the couple years I've been away, it's completely free.

 

[trancejeremy]

Hmmmm. That was the site that had the "RPG Class Test" that was a thread here a couple months ago.

 

[Merkuri]

I didn't see the test you mentioned, but I wouldn't be surprised. One of the fun things they do is allow users to make quizzes for other users to take. You can see other people's results of the same tests.

 

[trancejeremy]

Well, thanks for mentioning it. It's a very interesting site, although I'm not sure about the matching. One of my highest matches was a bisexual militant feminest socialist who works for a credit card company. None of that is necessarily bad, but not exactly what I would expect an 80+ match of me to be.

 

[Merkuri]

Heh, remember that the more questions you answer, the better your matches will be. It also doesn't check you against everyone at once. It keeps going through the records and finding more people. You may see a 99% match jump up on you one day if you keep looking. Although you're not going to see a 99% match until you answer a LOT of questions. I forget the exact math, but they figure out the standard deviation based on the number of questions you answer and subtract that from the match score they get. They figure this means they're showing you the minimum possible amount that you match. This means that even if your answers match someone else 100% if you've only answered 10 questions you'll have a standard deviation of 48 points (did not do any math, just picked a number to use as an example) it'll show your score as 52%. That means that until you answer more questions, 52% is the highest percentage you'll see.

They have a better explanation of how it works on the site. It's been a while since I checked out the site, but that's how it worked when I used it.

I remember it was a lot of fun to answer questions. Most of them were very interesting and made me stop and think. I think I answered all the questions they had (it was around 1,000 at the time) in four days, simply because it was entertaining to answer them.

I guess the one thing that might make OKCupid not work is if you don't know what you want. It soley uses your "ideal mate" answers to figure out how much someone matches you, and if you don't know what your "ideal mate" would answer then you're out of luck. Don't be afraid to skip questions or mark them "not important". For example, if you don't care how your potential mate feels about politics and there's a question about politics you can mark it "not important" so that question won't affect your match.

 

[Merkuri]

Well, thanks for mentioning it. It's a very interesting site, although I'm not sure about the matching. One of my highest matches was a bisexual militant feminest socialist who works for a credit card company. None of that is necessarily bad, but not exactly what I would expect an 80+ match of me to be.

Remember that the "match" number you see is actually an average of how you match her and how she matches you. You may be her ideal person (match 100%) but she only matches you 60%, so the average of that is 80%. In theory that doesn't happen very often, but it might explan really wierd matches you see.

 

[awayfarer]

Merk, I see you beat me to it.

I could swear reading somewhere on the OKCupid site that the highest match you could possibly get was a 94 or 95%, taking into account that well, people is people.