match.com

I recently decided to subscribe to Match.com and I wished I had read the messages here beforehand, because if I had, I would be 70 Pounds richer than I am now.

Firstly, after spending a couple of hours setting up a profile, it was subsequently deleted completely when it came to the moderation stage. I later found out that this was because the IP address I used was a company one and not fixed to any one particular country, so they assumed it was a fake. I eventually got through to someone in customer support who knew what they were talking about and the profile was reinstated.

Then there was my profile picture. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it and it complied with all their rules, yet the moderators still kept deleting it. I called them to ask precisely what was wrong with it and they could not tell me, so after asking for my money back, it finally got approved. Progress at last.

Customer support is not good. It sounds like the vast majority of their telephone people are located in India. The lines are poor and their English is average. If you email them, they very often simply reply with a pre-written response to a question which is completely different to the one you asked.

The site itself is average at best. It's quite buggy and if you want access to features that I think should be provided for free, then you have to pay more money, making this a VERY expensive site to belong to.

About me.... i'm a pretty average guy, no Brad Pitt, but no hunchback of Notre Dame either. I decided to join the site to hopefully meet someone closer to my age group who lives close to my home. This brings me on to the "content" of the site.

There are many many many profiles on there and on the surface, some seem OK. However, many of them appear not to have a paid subscription, which means that even if you mail them, they cannot contact you, unless you want to pay even more money to enhance your own profile! The sad thing is that you have no idea when you contact someone whether or not they can even reply to you. How pointless is that? Maybe they do have subscriptions, but they choose not to reply to a personal and well thought out message, in which case I have uncovered the rudest group of people on the planet.

What I also find strange is that more often than not, when you mail someone, Match might say they have been online in the last 24 hours, but they never check out your profile. Why is that ? If someone sent you an email, the first thing you would do is to check their profile to see what they look like? This leads me to believe that either the profile is fake, or that Match are not entirely truthful when they display the last logon time of their members.

After just 2 weeks of a six month membership, I cancelled. I have never felt so completely and utterly ignored in my whole life. Hardly anyone responds to messages at all. There is almost zero activity. I'd be amazed if anyone manages to hook up with anyone on that site and I would dispute the claim that 160 members per DAY leave them as couples. Well, if that is correct, then they sure as hell didn't meet through this site!

A woman might have some luck there. At least she could get some attention and who knows, might meet someone desirable. As for Men, I would strongly advise you to hold on to your money. There are 10 times as many men on there as women and it seems like it's mainly men who are paying the subscription costs.

Using Match.com for me was a thouroughly deflating experience. The quality of their members is poor and they absolutely MUST tell paying members before they go to the effort of trying to contact someone whether or not that person has a paid subscription and has the ability to reply. Don't waste your time sending endless mail messages like I did, because you won't get a reply.

Take the 70 Pounds you would have spent down the pub and at least get some enjoyment from it and who knows, you might meet someone at the bar:-)