Online dating review and Match.com

This is a rather long post, but hopefully it provides some use to someone looking for a graduate student's take on online dating.

Background:
I have tried my hand at this online dating world in an effort to meet someone who has something interesting to speak about besides Scalia, Stevens, Kennedy, and how smart lawyers must be to debate such asanine things ad nauseum. I have tried three different services (Yahoo, Match, and E-Harmony) and will offer my unbiased and lay opinion to each.

On each site, I provided my relevant information, and signed up for one month. I typically left the job field blank, although any careful reader would detect I was a student, which is probably the biggest turnoff to the non-student women I was attempting to meet. I put 4 or 5 pictures online, which is pretty much a precursor for success, and with some assistance from a couple of my friends, wrote my so-called “sales pitch” which is read by anyone who clicks on the picture. Obviously my goals for these sites were multi-leveled; however, I had thought that the online world had matured past its shadiness and figured it was better than a loud, smoky bar. My suggestions and conclusions are strewn throughout this review.

The Evaluations:
Worst Site: Yahoo Personals: 4 emails, 2 "meet up for drinks dates," no second dates. I also have vowed never to use yahoo messenger again to avoid a couple of weirdos. Yikes.

In a nutshell, Yahoo Personals is the easiest to use and simultaneously, the least effective dating service of the three I tested. I only signed up for a month ($30) but the functionality is just too limited for an accurate singles site. You probably would have more luck creating a MySpace page or Craigslist account and searching for people that way. By signing up for Yahoo messenger and linking it to your account (it may do this for you, I can't remember exactly), you can effectively communicate without actually paying, but then you have the weirdo factor so I don't recommend that strategy. It reminds me of how AIM used to be searchable (and maybe it still is) and I would get these weird "asl" i-ms from random people, most of which are still blocked from my account.

More to the point, Yahoo's personals site seemingly has a lot of people on it, and their free method of “icebreakers,” while potentially useful as a back and forth dialog, really has no practicality other than a free way of saying “what’s up, I saw your profile and think you look okay.” There are several icebreaker options, but when you look at them, you can see how doofy all but the most simplest of them are (see match.com analysis below for comparison). Regardless of paying, you have no way of telling who has looked at you unless they contact you first, and the only way to contact someone via email is by signing up. My impression is that most people who have listings you see are free users who are just testing the waters. While I did have limited success with this service, I would not recommend it and in fact, did not do so to two of my friends who eventually went online (although one did set up an yahoo account with similar results).

Ok for some people, not okay for me: E-Harmony: 3 matches which went to the “last step” of e-harmony’s matching process but nothing lasting.

I can't say the e-harmony commercials help their case and thank god they aren't on during the superbowl, but they do have a personality test that is moderately accurate (if you've done a myers-briggs personality test, you get the idea). Honestly, I think e-harmony is probably the best dating site of them all, but I suspect that its because its target market is the 30 and over/professional market that is much more serious about this whole online dating process. As a result, they are much better able to focus their services. You can’t search eharmony’s profiles though; they send who they feel is compatible to you. Curiously, you get a lot more profiles after you pay.

It’s also the most expensive of the three ($50 for one month), but one of my theories is that you get what you pay for, and this site certainly seems to be more geared to actually finding a compatible relationship. Whether it actually works or not, I don't know - the only woman I felt I matched up with well reached the email stage, but when she asked for my picture (which she had already seen on the site, so it was kind of an odd request), she said she was no longer interested. Fortunately for me, that was on the day or two before my account expired, so no biggie. Unfortunately for me, I never got her picture, so I must assume it would not have worked out. Oh well.

There was some overlap between the profiles I was sent on eharmony and those that were on Yahoo and Match (and obviously some where on two or all three). You can post a profile for free which gets you some limited access but to do anything beyond the bare minimum, you have to pay. Most of the more compatible matches they sent to me were professionals at least my age or older, and seemingly all were paying subscribers since I would get emails from those I matched up with and proceeded to the next step. Being a student, however, didn’t quite have the intended effect I desired in this process, but I do give e-Harmony props for as at least approaching the undersaturated online personals market with some focus. For the under-30 crowd, though, I think your success will be limited. I have recommended e-Harmony to my various non-student professional friends who are in the dating market. Nevertheless, I have yet to hear of any success stories from them.

Best of the worst (a reserved recommendation): Match.com – 200+ views, 10 or so winks, 10 or so emails, 3 scam emails, a few drink dates.

Out of the three, this is the only one which produced the best results (for me anyway), and despite my unsuccessful attempts at finding a "nice girl" here, I still push for this site (although I hope I am clearly presenting all of the asterisks that go along with this qualified recommendation).

For lack of a better phrase, Match.com probably gives you the most for your buck, so to speak. I just don’t think their marketing department quite has it right though. You can list your profile for free and search all profiles, and their equavalent of Yahoo's “icebreaker” is called a “wink.” Essentially this wink is the same as the first yahoo icebreaker option; you can “wink” at someone who is interested and it sends them an email with your profile attached that you winked at them. They can then “wink back" at them or say “no thanks" or do nothing and leave them hanging. If they wink back, or say "no thanks" you will get an email; however, you are essentially at a stalemate unless one of you is a paying customer.

For $30 a month (or $50 for 3 months, which is comparable to Yahoo’s discount pricing), you can send unlimited emails and see the profiles of people who clicked on your profile. The real incentive to shell out this $30 (other than the fact that it's cheaper than one dinner date with a movie, you cheapskates) is if you get an email from someone. If this occurs, you get an email that “someone” has emailed you, and in order to read the email, which is some anonymous@match.com email available through your account, you have to pay. I’m sure this has some intrinsic marketing pull, but one of my friends tells me that he got this "anonymous email," went to the site, accessed it, emailed her back a day later, and never got a response. Kind of fishy...Supposedly this is the type of scam that has gotten a lot of paying users up in arms because these emails may have been sent on behalf of Match. They have received bad press about this already so no need to dwell on how poor this business practice actually is (more on that below). Nevertheless, I will operate on the assumption that they have a less deceitful marketing department and the person that emailed my friend was just goofy in the head or simply changed her mind for no apparent reason.

I suspect that more people pay for match’s services than those who do not, but that being said, there are a large core of people who do not. The lack of responses (or profile views) of people who I thought were hot (and more importantly, seemed to have a head on their shoulders as well), and winked at or emailed was pretty disappointing. I will say that I got at least a couple “no thanks” responses, so that was nice to at least have some type of closure.

This was also the only site which I received rather strange emails that were written on a third grade level. In tracing their ip information from their offsite emails, I was able to trace one to Amsterdam and another to the Ukraine. I suspect these scammers are attempting to bilk some poor lad hoping to find so-called “true love” (also known as “lust at first sight”) out of his (or her) hard earned money. Apparently the scam has been reported on here: Net scam comes from Russia with love. See also Scamoram.com for a more humorous and informative look at the scams I am talking about.

These scam accounts are actually pretty easy to spot out; and I'm guessing because of the high percentage of scam emails I received in such a short amount of time that Match’s unspoken practice must be that if they are getting paid, they will look the other way, which all in all is a pretty poor practice. Of the three scam accounts I reported, all were taken down eventually, but if I found three, I must question how many more fraudulent scam accounts are there and why isn't Match doing anything about it? Anyway, the accounts are written in such a way that it should be clear that English is not their first language, and the only field filled out is the “About me and what I’m looking for” field. If they do email you back, they will include a yahoo or hotmail account they want you to contact them offsite with and the email usually is written in broken English. In one case, the email had a very strange tale about how their dad was a drug dealer who “makes lot of money and we live in a happy home.” Then she got into modeling and was flying to Nigeria overnight to visit her sick grandmother. Another worked as a “seller of ice cream” and “periodically go in for sports for maintenance of a body.” I can only speculate how many poor souls have been bilked by these scam artists, which is why I feel compelled to point out how easy it is to spot for anyone who stumbles across one on this site.

The key to not getting frauded or have your valuable time wasted on Match is to do a fairly broad search. When you find someone who you think is compatible with you, read carefully their posted information and be suspicious of broken English or those profiles which fill out the bare minimum. Chances are that the profilers are either not taking it seriously or are scammers. You can also tell who is legitimate by whether they click on you or not, as the scammers typically lie in wait for you to contact them and do not click on your profile after they do. Of course, if they actually do click on you, that doesn’t mean anything either until one or the other makes the first move. From there, you’re on your own, and if you have to read this blog for dating advice also, you need to do a different google search.

Scammers aside, there are a ton of people who are signed up on Match, and its search functionality is pretty comprehensive. There are more than a few throwaway questions that really have no bearing on helping you find a match though (although I recall that one of the scam accounts had checked the box that she liked fleas, which was another tell-tale sign). For ladies who are looking to meet new people, online is better than a bar since more guys probably pay, and from this bank of guys, you can have your pick among the litter. On the other hand, an ungodly amount of profiles begin with "I'm a nice girl looking for a nice guy" or "I this" and "I that" - if it doesn't work in a bar people, why do you think it would work online? I'll let you in on a secret - everybody is a nice person. Given that, you may want to give them the straight dope (and I don't mean drugs, since apparently there are a lot of people looking to score drugs online also).

Anyway, the email system for paying users on Match is pretty comprehensive enough, and after a month of trying it out, I would (and have) recommended it to my 30-and-under friends. At the very least, it’s a good ego boost to see how many girls (or guys in the case of female users) check you out. A quick review of the internet though (fairly older reviews nowadays) suggests that my evaluation of the Match.com service is nothing unique:
Reader review of Match.com rates it 2 out of 10.
Nigerian 419 Scams now on Match.com.

I am left to conclude that online personals today probably are no better off than they were when the internet was still “shady,” but they are getting better so they are worth a shot. For $30, as I said, it's as cheap as a first date, and if you find a rose among the thorns, then wouldn't you say it was worth the measly $30? That being said, the only real success stories I have actually heard about are from puffery-ads on television. I must confess, however, that my neighbor (who went to high school with me) did meet her husband on the internet in 1999, so it’s not like it can’t happen now or even then when the internet truly was shadier. I also saw some other students/people I knew on Match, so you shouldn't feel like you are the only one doing it. There were actually a lot of students and young professionals (supposedly) out there doing the same thing. Theoretically, it should work, and the bars should be therefore deathly afraid they will be put out of business.

Conclusions:
If you were to use any of the three sites, I would recommend e-Harmony if you are a professional and looking for someone who is probably in your shoes and doing the same thing, and it may work out. If you are in that key 18-22 demographic, stick to mySpace, you aren’t taking dating seriously anyway, and you probably will have a bunch of sicko (and psycho) 40+ year olds hitting on you. But if you’re into that, hey, good for you. If you’re in that post-college/getting to old for the bar scene but younger than the old person/townie bar scene, I would recommend Match, but bear in mind that you will have a 5-10% success rate for every email/wink sent, so it’s really more of a numbers game until you believe you have made a legitimate connection with someone who you can only hope is a real person. At that point, it's no different than being fixed up with one of your friend's friends.

As far as my recommendations as to what makes for a better profile, you will want to put 5 or 6 pictures of yourself on there, and honesty is the best policy. Most people aren’t that photogenic (and don't have very good non-drinking pictures of themselves); you will see exactly what I mean when you start searching through these profiles. Also, you must deactivate your account while it is still active if you don't wish to continue past your first payment, otherwise they will charge your credit card for another billable cycle. I deactivated mine with a week left and haven't had any problems. It's common sense really: If you cancel in advance, they can't do anything but let you continue to use the service you prepaid for until the time you have paid for runs out. Thus, don't fall into their recurring charge trap, which I'm sure is another deceptive way they are making money.

Free business idea: I believe the personals market is desperate for a site that falls somewhere in between Match and e-Harmony and has a much higher success rate. Because I have no interest in developing that business/marketing plan, I will simply offer this advice to a more websavvy/business-minded individual(s): if you do what I did for a month, you could easily develop a unique pay-for-access site with more search/match functionality and incentive to pay. They key is paying users (obviously), but with a little mySpace savvy, I'm sure you can figure it out. Obviously you can't have any way of contacting users prior to paying to do so, and there are easy word searches you can preprogram that can block such attempts out. I suspect this business is a minimum quarter-million to 1.5 million dollar a year business after four years, and I’m sure the profit margin would be through the roof since the overhead probably isn’t too dramatic.

Good luck.

Tags: match.com, online dating, yahoo personals, eharmony, match, scam, scamorama