It's Just Lunch - Employees

I was hired three weeks ago as a Dating Specialist. I had quit a good job to go to It's Just Lunch because it had no travel, better hours, a base salary and better benefits. As a Dating Specialist, we take calls from potential clients, explain the membership and do the initial interview to find out what their preferences are. My training class had 10 new hires. Right now, three weeks later, only two are still employed. If you don't hit their numbers, you're fired. Three were fired during their first week on the phone! They didn't even get a chance!

The training class, three weeks previous to ours, had 10 new hires and none of them survived. The training class, three months prior to ours, had 10 new hires and two of them are still there. There is a class that was trained last week, so they started at their offices today. Best of luck to them, but from the stats I have encountered, they only have a 10% chance of staying.

I went through and read all the complaints about It's Just Lunch and was almost shocked because I worked for them for a short period of time and they are true! We are taught to "sound like we are busy", "act like we have tons of customers having lots of fun with us" but reality is quite different! After working with them a few weeks, I was able to see that after I signed people up, who I really hoping they would find someone was able to see the reality of what really went on!

These so called "dating directors" are hourly paid employees who don't care about matching people up on things they have in common but really match them up based on the limited number of clients that we have. We are told as long as we have two (that's right two) people to match someone up with; we need to take their money! I actually was told by a "Dating Director" that she was matching my client up because she knew this other guy was a good "first dater".

He had nothing in common with my client I signed up! He was actually not someone I would have picked out based on our conversation because she was very athletic, ran a lot, petite girl and she wanted to put her with a guy that was 5'9 and weighed 250lbs! She had no idea what this guy looked like because he didn't turn in a picture! She said is that fat? There isn't anything wrong with bigger men but that wasn't her preference! I felt really bad about taking her money at this point because at that time, I realized this was all a scam! It didn't matter what my client wanted or her preferences because we were limited to the people we could choose from.

They say there ratio is 50/50 men to women; that's not true! I had several markets I was calling on and every single market had majority women. Even going through the database, I was quick to see all the complaints that people were having. Somewhere complaining about the quality of people they met some complained about the lack of follow up from their Dating Director. Let me put it to you like this, it's all true. If you are thinking about finding someone and dropping $2,200, 2,000, 1,800, 500, do not waste your money on It's Just Lunch! Trust me and everyone else on this site.

They are no different than eHarmony, match.com and Plenty of Fish. The only difference is you will spend a lot more money talking with a live person who will take your money and you will never speak with again. The turnover rate is out of the roof; from the dating directors, to the sales people. Run after reading this, and you still spend your money on this "It's just a Joke" dating service then the only person you have to blame is yourself.

I worked at It's Just Lunch as a Dating Director. It is the worst place I have ever worked in my life. I was paid $12 an hour to be a "matchmaker." My official title was "dating director." This would have been fine, except for a few things:

1. We used a database to match people up. The matches were based on similar interests, as well as certain physical "must haves" or age ranges that the client preferred. The only thing is, over half of the client profiles are wildly inaccurate, or did not have pictures of the clients. We found ourselves BLINDLY describing matches to our clients.

2. There were serious demographic realities that the Sales Reps (or "Inside Sales Reps - ISRs") chose to gloss over when selling memberships in their region. For example, my territory had a very high proportion of Black women who only wanted to date Black men. The trouble is, this region only had a couple of Black male members. These men were routinely sent out on dates, just to satisfy the growing pool of dissatisfied women. This would have been avoided if the Sales Reps warned potential clients of their membership.

3. It was corporate policy to let all incoming calls go to voicemail. Why? Because most of them were customer complaints. Our superiors knew that these complaints (or Customer Relations - "CRs" as we called them) would take up most of our day, which would in turn detract from...

4. Our mandated policy of at least 7 dates per day. We had to meet a daily quota of 7 dates per day (or an average of 35 dates a week). It didn't matter if the matches made sense, if the client was happy, or if the client's needs were taken into consideration. If you made your number, you were considered a good dating director.

5. We were not allowed to send any emails to clients that were not a) based on a template, or b) first approved by a Team Leader. I soon found out why. IJL has so many legal problems that they cannot promise anything in writing.

6. No refunds. We were told to tell all clients that we absolutely do not give refunds, no matter what. It was the most ridiculous policy, ever. Nearly half of my clients wanted their money back, because IJL was blatantly providing bad service -- but because of a badly written contract, they were not able to get any refunds.

7. High employee turnover - There is a new dating director every few weeks. This is antithetical to their claims of "high quality, personalized service."

Lastly: 8. The ludicrously low pay. EVERY potential IJL client needs to know that IJL only pays their dating directors $12/hour for their jobs. For $12 an hour, the only method of evaluating whether I was good at my job or not was based on how many dates I was able to send people out on, and how low my "query" was (a query is a report that shows the percentage of how many of the clients in your territory have not been out on a date in the past 3 weeks).

In short - you are paying thousands of dollars for the worst service imaginable. No one answers your calls, and you are routinely set up on bad dates. Worse, you can never get your money back. Take it from someone who has actually worked there. STAY AWAY.

I was hired as a contractor for It's Just Lunch in their Albany, New York market in the fall of 2008. My title, as was assigned by the company, was "Membership Coordinator," and they have these coordinators in each market. My job was to interview new clients after one or two dates to see how things were going for them re: their IJL experience. After interviewing a few dozen clients, here are my findings:

It's Just Lunch should be called It's Just About Your Money. They will tell you EVERYTHING you want to hear, how they have oodles of clients that would be a perfect match, how professional their clientele is, how they'll be fixing the clients up with great dates, how love is just around the corner, and etc..., exactly what the prospect wants to hear. Then they get your credit card...and promptly forget all the promises they just made. Worse than politicians, frankly.

STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY; THEY HAVE NO INTENTIONS OF FINDING YOU APPROPRIATE DATES AND/OR A LOVE MATCH!! Contractually, all they have to do is fix you up with a number of warm bodies and their obligation is fulfilled. They don't give a whit about the clients, only about taking their money. In fact, I spent a great deal of interview time apologizing to clients for their experiences and smoothing their ruffled feathers.

It's Just Lunch treats their clients like crap: they overpromise just to get your money and then totally under-deliver when it's their turn to make good on the contract. RUN, DON'T WALK FROM THESE PEOPLE. THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOU! THEY WILL TAKE YOUR MONEY AND DO AS LITTLE AS CONTRACTUALLY POSSIBLE TO FULFILL THEIR OBLIGATION.

IJL is a complete SCAM. I am a former employee. All I will say is they train us to lie and one of the biggest lies is they will tell you they have a ton of people when they have maybe 100 or 200 TOPS. DO NOT GO THERE.

Well lets put it this way worked for them for years and the are really bad at what they do. They lie to everyone including the people who work for them. They would tell us to get creative and make the person younger if we had to. They would say we just need them to go out we don't care if they like it or not. They would tell us to say we worked there for years even if we just started.

I feel so bad because these people who join IJL are just looking for love and honesty, IJL takes and never gives in return, They layed all of the century City girls off and made a call center in Florida. So now when a client calls they no longer talk to anyone that knows them. they get matched by people whom they never met. this business should be stopped. I know you may think O she got layed off she is mad well no I'm happy i hated the job when i was there but needed the money. I just really feel that it has got to stop.

I was wondering the internet one day and looked up this company, It's Just Lunch, that I used to work for. I can't believe some of these people. The service might not work for everyone, but I have seen a lot of successful matches over the time that I worked there. If there was ever any problems that a client was having then we would try to resolve them or give them a refund. It's Just Lunch doesn't take everyone. If I didn't have matches for someone, then I wouldn't take them. What would the point be if I would have to have them upset and then give them a refund? Some people can never just be happy and there is no pleasing them. Some of them (probably all of the people posting on here) have completely unrealistic expectaions.

There are over 300,000 clients worldwide in IJL and how many complaints are on here? Like 50 worldwide. How would we have stayed in business for 18 years if we were such a rip off? There is always two sides to every story, so check out the BBB to see how many unresolved complaints are on there...NONE! Most clients are very happy with service because it is so easy and there are so many fantastic professional people. I loved working there and seeing all of my successful matches. Of course there are a few bad apples you have to deal with, but when I got feedback about the dates from 99% of the clients thanking me so much for introducing them to one another, it makes it all worth it! I would hate for a potential normal client for IJL to read all this and think it's not for them.

I used to work for It's Just Lunch, and I want to tell all those people out there: SAVE YOUR MONEY! This company is a franchise, which means they are required to meet quotas as a part of their contract. They hire and fire those representatives that are supposed to match you up, and if they don't make their monthly quotas they are fired. This means within a couple months the person who interviews you will most likely not match you. In fact they have people coming and going out of that company that the only thing they look at is the sheet to see if you both like tennis or like to eat. This is how they match you! Your matchmaker has never even met your dates! It's all on a piece of paper. They seriously would just send people out on dates so you just use up your dates. Personal matching is a lie when they don't even interview the persons.

It's Just Lunch also fibs on ages! They will knock off a couple years if you are older. They don't fully tell the other person that they have 6 kids when you specifically request someone without kids. They lie about occupation.... You name it, they do it to get your money and get you out on dates so you can't request a refund. They even are so strapped for people to match correctly that they will try to match the same people up again not knowing or remembering that they already went out!

I finally left that company after seeing how may upset people would call and complain every day about their dates or want a refund. Good luck on that! They try anything and everything not to give you your money back.. It is truely sad that these people take advantage of those people out there looking for love. I apologize to all those out there I called to send them on their horrible dates.

No refunds! Don't even try! Or get a good lawyer.

I owned 3 franchise locations until very recently. I can and will tell you the entire story about this company and Daniel Dolan. If you think anything you have on your website currently scratches the surface that is laughable. I have copies of all contracts, emails, corporate correspondence (including ones in regards to your website) and legal filings to support my story.

I am a prior employee and want to join the early 2006 report about It's Just Lunch. I too had a similar experience being trained to sell memberships to potential clients. I received no experience in matchmaking but did receive a four day training about making the sale. The company is all about the sale and not about matchmaking. The only guarantee this dating company makes is that it will expand the client's social network. They give no guarantee that you will even like the person you meet. However, the propoganda- although not a direct lie- dupes emotional clients into signing up for a service that, for the most part, fails. At It's Just Lunch, the customer is always wrong. There's just as much a chance as meeting someone at Starbucks, on Match.com, or at the gym as there is at It's Just Lunch. You'll just save yourself the 1500.00. I got out as quick as I could.

I had 2 franchises with the company. Shortly after joining I realized the atmosphere was not the warm and fuzzy environment you would think of at a dating company.

Even at the Franchisee instructional meeting we were berated by Andrea for asking the wrong questions.

After talking with other operators we found that many to most of them were not profitable and that they were having financial problems with the heavy requirement for advertising expenditures as well as kicking into the national media accounts.

Because of, in my opinion, trumped up defaults we were in constant threat of defaults and termination which made the working environment extremely undesirable and uncomfortable. I actually had a heart attack which I believe was caused to a large degree by the stress i was under as a franchisee of this organization. In my opinion this is a very undesirable company to do businss with particularly because of Dolan.

Leona Helmsley has nothing on these two and he's got the extra utility of being a former attorney so he knows how to grind people up and spit them out. Most of the franchisees are terrified of him as they know his history and his threats of bankruptcy and lawsuits.

We are in federal court as we speak as I am counterclaiming Dolan of not divulging that most small and mid-size markets are not profitable and never have been. In my opinion he is just taking advantage of small business operators to generate fee revenue for the franchisor.

I actually worked as the Coordinator for the WPB/PB Gardens office for 14 months. I stopped working there in Feb of 2004, and it has always bothered me that I didn't report their misconduct. I was directed by my boss to lie, avoid answering client questions, and to make someone feel bad about being unhappy w/the service if they complained.

I accidently stumled into the many consumer complaints two weeks after accepting the position of Sales Director for the Washington DC branch of It's Just Lunch. Four months later I find myself sitting here feeling used and defrauded by my experiences.

I ignored the red flag when I was told that I did not fit the mold of the typical IJL Director. I am 56 years old and an African American. Nevertheless I was assured by the owner that I could make 85,000- 100,000 my first year. This was even stated on the website which was how I learned about this opportunity in the first place.

They assure it's members that the directors are well trained to make good matches... wrong. I cannot speak for the other branches but the matches made by office are being made by three coordinators whose job is to call the restaurants to arrange the dates... NOT TO MAKE MATCHES. Courtney is 19 years old and IJL is her first job. Katie, the office manager is 24 and her biggest claim to fame is that she worked at Disney World for 5 years as Mickey Mouse and Alison who is really a dear person and to her credit seems to have a natural gift to make good matches. To be totally honest her biggest gift is that she cares about her clients enough to actually read their profiles.

I came aboard four months ago and finally got to the point that I just could not go on defrauding myself and the good people who came in and dropped $1500. I confess I got very good at my contribed skill. I was actually nominated last month as Director of The Quarter... an honor that I am not at all proud of.

Recently I got to the point where my attitude was changing and I was no longer the cheerful, optomostic emplotee I once was.

I am sure that I was not too easy to get along with , but I was actually being eaten up with guilt. My husband can attest to tthe fact that I cried myself to sleep lots of nights.

All of the statements made against IJL are absolutely true. I am a former employee and witnessed it all. In our office the owner actually brought in her friend (Comp--free--no contract) to date the undesireables! They blatantly lie about the number of clients & really search for the only thing they may have in common to call it a match. (Like they both like dogs!)Its sad to see how excited they are when they come in & then to hear their complaints after seeing who they are matched with. I used to wake from a sound sleep knowing that a quite undesireable was matched with a really great person & would go in & tell the director to please rematch them. I am so glad that I dont have to see the dishonesty anymore. At least I am one of the few that really cared & tried to do something about it.I was told to stop caring so much and just coordinate the date. Please people, think twice about a service that will not show you photos--there IS a reason for that!Money cant buy happiness and $1000- $1500.00 can buy you soooo much misery.Anyone interested in a class action suit to get your money back? Im with you & know many other employees who would also back you up. Employees got screwed in so many ways too. Directors get fired after 2 months (right before benefits kick in)supposedly for not reaching quota. But, IF you know someone involved with Corporate-you get promoted for not making quota.Our office needed a # of people to open an office in another city. The owner actually took previous clients, DNC's (do not call)and expired clients and put them on the list. All fake clients! Now IF the owner feels no guilt in lying to the corporate office how could you trust them to give you what you THINK you are paying for. If they had the clients-you may be lucky enough to get the few good ones. But the mental picture that they paint and what you get are quite far from each other. Its sad that so many have to get hurt just because they believed and wanted some happiness.

I have been under Drs. care for headaches for over 6mo. I have been gone 1 1/2wks. & havent had one since. Having to lie & deceive caused more stress then I thought. I also never got a review or raise for 10 months. I was not told about IJL sponsoring a Singles Mingle. As the director was packing up advertsing pamplets, I asked why & was told it was that evening. Could it be that I am 20yrs. older then them? They brought in a director from (Rochester) 90 miles away to attend this. I was also asked to be fired or laid off in May to collect unemployment but still come into work because money was tight. She would pay the difference & keep my insurance. When I said I wasnt comfortable with it..she said never mind. I was let go 6/30/06 because she said their was a client issue that morning but it was actually the fault of the Rochester director. Strangely enough a new hire was there the next morning. Guess all this was planned because maybe I knew too much & she was very uncomfotable about my age. Since the new owner took over from corporate in March the director made a few comments about my age. I worked with her before under corporate and nothing was ever said. Since JB took over about 10-15 age related things took place in 3 mo.The clients were as happy as they could be because they could tell that I cared. I received thank you cards & flowers for going that little extra. I can say that No one else ever received any thing other then hate mail.

I worked for Its Just Lunch! for about 4 months and absolutely hated it!!

These are the reasons you should not work for this company or join its service!!

1. The turnover is absolutely huge for employees, chances are the person that you interview with that will be hand picking every one of your matches for you will not be there the following week because she either quit or got fired for not hitting an UNREALISTIC quota.

2. The whole company is a lie. The woman that I interviewed with lied to my face about what was to be expected with joining the company, and she will lie to you to.

3. 50/50 men and woman!? Hell NO! more like 80% woman and 20% men.

4. Even if we dont have anyone for you we as sales directors are forced to take you as a member because the owner wants the money! So ya, im sorry but 99.9999% of all directors will be lying to you just to get you to join.

5. HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGEEEE COMPLAINTS!! I feel bad for the coordinators right now dealing with this mess, they truly are the ones that keep the company together unfortunately. Without them, there would be NOTHING. There were maybe 3 completely satisfied customers out of our whole pool of people and that was about 700.

6. If you're planning on joining you might as well just not even show up for the interview and throw away your money to them because anything that you say wont matter at matching time, whoever needs to go out will be set up with you no matter what even though the age paremeters dont match at all. At our Milwaukee IJL we had what you called the sacrificial lamb -- the poor man or woman that had to go out with anyone that needed to go out, just because they were too nice and they didnt bitch that bad.

7. I was forced to take on a man that is involved in pyramid schemes and I think that he may seriuosly have something mentally wrong with him.

8. For all those people that I took money from for those four months. If you are reading this, I am soooo sorry. Your year is almost up and you can get on with your life. I seriously hope you're doing ok.

I turned down a wonderful job opportunity because I was promised that my quotas were reachable. HA!

Seriously, I wasted 4 months of my life at this miserable job. My boss, the franchise owner, scammed me in every way possible.

I was hired for It's Just Lunch in Buffalo. The office has been opened for 4 months but I was their 3rd director. Before I started I was told that the owner would be out Mon, Tues and Weds and she said..you will go to training in San Diego for a week and when you get back, you'll have off for the first 3 days because I dont want you to start when I'm not there. I said..great! Well, right before I left for training, she now wanted me to come in for that week so the plans I made had to be cancelled.

I was rolling with booked appointments but when they came in and I interviewed them, they werent joining. I obviously was doing something wrong. I asked the co-ordinator but she said, I'm not the director and I dont know what you do in training. Obviously, I shouldnt of started until the owner was in but that was neither here nor there. The second week, I sold almost $8,000 but of course I didnt reach my goal of $8,000, hence no bonus. I still was happy with my results but obviously, I wasnt doing good enough. I went through the old director's info call book over and over and kept calling the same people. The owner insisted I hadnt covered everyone, but we never sat down to go over the book.

I was calling and calling and some days I had 4-5 appts booked working 10-11 hour days with no lunch or eating at my desk. One day, the owner and co-ordinator left for 3 hours and when they got back I had 4 appts and couldnt leave for lunch. Of course, she told me not to book after 5:00 but she had an appt come in at 6:30. I then had a client come in week one and interviewed him. He wanted to take some time to decide. I called him several times to see if he had thought about it and if he had any other concerns. I also asked the owner to call him. She got him to come in but wouldnt tell me what problem he had with me. He gave her the check, but she didn't credit me with the client even though I booked the interview, interviewed him and followed up. She YELLED at me for not checking the pending files for notes. I was BRAND NEW. I was learning the procedures.

Now, I come to find out, another director quit that was in my training class and two others ( min. ) are quitting their jobs. They expect you to be on a HIGH all day long like you're on helium and then when you get home, you're too exhausted to do anything. The owner told me I'd get used to it. Not only that but they were in the office whispering all day and it was very distracting. I was told to tell our clients that we have over 400 clients in our database. We do, but only about 40 are active. ( maybe a little more ) The others were just people that called in for info.

Although I think that this is a professional company, I dont understand the high rate of turnover. One girl told me that she was the 7th director in 10 months. Our co-ordinator said things like, she may not go out with him on her first date, but she WILL go out with him even though it wasnt a good match.