More than 90 percent of the potential dates on Match.com are canceled subscribers, people who never subscribed, duplicates, or phantoms the company created to snare its $40 a month subscription fee, a class action claims in Federal Court.
Match.com knows this, yet still collects $39.99 a month from its Subscribers, all the while perpetuating a scheme to the detriment and disappointment of its subscribers, the suit charges.
"At bottom, Match.com is a scam," Jesse Kaposi of Novato, Calif., alleges in his suit, filed in federal district court in Dallas.
According to its website, "20,000 singles" join the Match.com community every day and "hundreds of thousands" of people find love on Match.com every year, the suit notes.
Match.com has two types of "Members" -- Subscribers and Non-subscribers. Unless a Match Member is a paying Subscriber they cannot respond to contact from other Members (i.e. e-mails, winks, etc.) or view the profile of people who contact them, the suit says.
Match routinely offers new Members or cancelled former Subscribers free trial memberships that permit Non-subscribers access privileges normally restricted to paying Subscribers. Match then lumps together profiles of Subscribers and Non-subscribers and displays them as if they are the same, Kaposi charges.
Match.com advertises that it has 15 million "Members" but does not disclose that only 1.4 million of its "Members" are actually "Subscribers," the suit alleges, quoting documents filed by Match.com owner IAC Inc. with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Less than 10%
"Thus, less than ten percent (10%) of Match.com's 15 million Members can actually be reached by another Member," the suit charges.
If a Subscriber identifies an interesting online profile and desires to make contact, Match.com encourages the Subscriber to send the person an email or a "wink". Match.com also may give the Subscriber a signal that that person is "Online Now" or has been "Active Within One Hour " -- which the suit charges is often not true, alleging that Members will be labeled "Online Now" even when they are not logged into the Match site and have not been for months.
Only when the intended recipient also is a Subscriber, may he or she receive the sender's email or "wink." On the other hand, i f the intended recipient is a Non-subscriber, Match.com does not inform the Subscriber sending the e-mail that the intended recipient cannot open, read and/or respond to their emails or "winks" and/or the intended recipient cannot view the Subscriber's profile, username or photographs - although Match.com has the capability to do so, the suit charges.
Kaposi claims that Match.com uniformly misleads Subscribers to believe that any Member may access and read an e-mail and see who sent it by proclaiming in the Terms of Use that "Receiving email is free; you can receive responses even if you have never subscribed to Match.com" -- even though such e-mails cannot be opened, viewed, read and/or replied to.
"In short, only a fraction of the people Match.com Subscribers attempt to reach will ever be reached and not only does Match.com affirmatively conceal this fact but it misleads Subscribers to think that the opposite is true," the suit charges
Marilyn Leiker (Wed, 10 Aug 2011 21:46:57 +0000): If this subscription to Match.com is a scam, then it joins other online scams like customers clicking inadvertently on some part of a web site or online order and then being billed from $14.95 to $24.95 per month for NOTHING. If one does not catch this on a credit card bill, the scam goes on and on until the victim finally has a bill with few enough charges to spot the theft. Complaints to the credit card company can resolve only one or two months of the unethical charge. That leaves some people with hundreds of dollars out of pocket for absolutely nothing. Sounds like Match.com does the same thing, essentially. I oppose internet regulation of any kind, but there needs to be a dedicated organization that tracks down and prosecutes these scammers. The scammers cost consumers millions of dollars per year. State attorneys general do nothing because their volume of work is loaded with other, more pressing investigations. Individuals need to get a class action lawsuit together to slap these scammers with huge fines, penalties, and triple damages, not to mention sending all their employees to jail because the employees have to know their employers are doing illegal and unethical things online.
Fernando Ardenghi (Wed, 17 Aug 2011 19:54:17 +0000): last January, the CEO for Latam Countries, Mr. Claudio Gandelman from Match Argentina recognized 75% inactive profiles.
"Caras y Caretas" (Faces and Masks) is a high society magazine.
Article "Te espero en la banda ancha" (I wait you in the BroadBand, article about the Online Dating Industry Market in Argentina) page 84.
- Match Argentina claims 4 million Argentinean profiles, but admits they are only 1 million active profiles (not paying members, only active profiles). The article, written by the journalist Juan Pablo Urfeig clearly says "Desde Match reconocen que de los cuatro millones de inscriptos en el país, sólo un millón se mantiene activo".
"From Match, they recognize that the four million registered in the country (Argentina), only one million are still active".
[i.e. 75% of profiles at Match Argentina are useless at all, they are inactive].
Full scanned article at:
http://onlinedatingsoundbarrier.blogspot.com/2011/01/featured-in-caras-y-caretas-issue-n.html
D.c. Price (Sat, 20 Aug 2011 18:04:35 +0000): OK...I'm with him. Where do I sign up on the lawsuit.
Mark Dailey (Wed, 24 Aug 2011 19:12:46 +0000): Thumbs up! Let's get them!
Sheba Wheeler (Wed, 31 Aug 2011 17:57:57 +0000): I'm not in the least bit surprised.
Tim Sushiman (Mon, 05 Sep 2011 00:21:21 +0000): Just joined and got two winks. They were both out of my state and didn't even exist. I got this message when I clicked on the wink link: Oops, the profile you're looking for is not available.
Hossmoor An Equine Facility (Sun, 18 Sep 2011 17:15:38 +0000): I paid for a 6 month membership and the "guarantee" was that if you didn't find someone, match.com would give you 6 month's membership free. The time grew near, and I had fulfilled the part I had to do (x # of emails sent a month, profile on all the time, etc. etc.) and was looking forward to my free 6 months. On 9/16 (which might have been the 6 month date) I went to log in and couldn't. I tried all the suggestions from them and then was on hold FOREVER, but finally got a live person. She informed me that "someone" changed my password and removed some photos on 9/16. Clearly it wasn't me. She told me that my membership had "rolled over" so my account was charged for something over $100. for a new 6 months, but they were so sorry about the problem that they would give me one month FREE. I protested saying I was due for 6 months free. "Oh, no," she says, "that's only for new members!" "But, but, I was a new member," I say,"and I did everything to qualify for it." Turns out I would have to do a new site (and you know what a pain in the ass that is) and get the one month free, and that would probably roll over to god knows what). I tried to get transferred to a supervisor; she left my on hold intermittently for a long time to check records. I gave up. I said cancel me - I won't pay the new 6 month fee, you won't owe me a month, and it will be DONE. Of course, she agreed.
Then I got kinda mad and looked up online. I suggest emailing <amy.canaday@match.com> with complaints or calling her at 1-214-576-9416 or writing match.com at IAC World Headquarters, 555W 18th Street, New York, NY, 10011 or calling 1-212-314-7300.
Harassment at least feels good. If you know how to get in on the class action lawsuit against them, tell me, please.
H
Oh, did I have fun on match? Yep, went on kazillion dates and met quite a few really nice men - most ones I wasn't interested in romantically, but hey, they were interesting and I am still exploring a relationship possibility with one of them.
Matthew Ryan Ceder (Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:30:45 +0000): I am on the phone with them now, I am being transferred to the corperate office, I am not a happy customer...
Michelle Pollard (Wed, 12 Oct 2011 03:31:12 +0000): anyone here been a victim of a scam or con through their Match.com account? Contacted by a person with a nice picture and profile but it is really a scammer in Lagos? I have a friend this happened to and she was naive and her husband had just died so she was vulnerable, she joined Match and after the first guy took her for a HUGE chunk of change she complained, got 4 months free, she has been contacted by probably 20-30 guys and they have all been scammers! Looking for any recourse or info. on this type of activity. Thanks
Drew Johnson (Fri, 11 Nov 2011 16:21:06 +0000): Yup, Match.com is a giant ripoff. OkayCupid is totally free, doesn't pull this shit and has much more interesting features.
David Barton Campbell (Mon, 21 Nov 2011 00:25:36 +0000): What I don't like is that they NEVER completely delete your profile, even when you resign and hide it. They say they keep it for "historical and legal purposes. " The only way they will delete it from their database is if you are DEAD, and your survivors provide a death certificate.
Miles Harris (Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:47:33 +0000): In response to my request to completely terminate my account it was explained to me that my profile would be "hidden". I clarified that I did not want Match.com to maintain any profile on my behalf (hidden or otherwise) and requested confirmation that my profile was completely removed. I have received no response to my email requesting the complete deletion of my profile. 