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I decided to take a chance after a years absence from POF and see if by chance things have changed. The first thing I noticed was an entirely new interface which seemed promising but sadly, that's where it ended.
For those of you looking for a dating site that will help you connect with singles then please do yourself a favor and just rely on strolling around the produce section of your local grocery store. Rather than just posting my personal opinions, I have provided you with hard evidence so you can decide for yourself. I have included screenshots and you'll find them at the bottom of this page.
I'll keep this as simple as possible. I will be sharing real examples of how useless and deceptive this site really is.
1. Hey guys, you said it's free but it doesn't work.
Nothing is free about this site. To send letters to women the men must first purchase tokens. The selection process is somewhat deceptive and misleading because there are numerous options and features that can confuse you about what you have access to. The most basic option is to purchase 1 token in order to send letters to members. You can purchase tokens in larger values and they will allow you to spruce up your profile with colored borders and bold text etc. None of this really works. It's just a cheap cash grab by the company which does NOT improve your chances of meeting anybody.
2. Return to sender.
This part I wish to take my time to elaborate on because many of you reading this will have a hard time believing it. Without exaggerating, my personal experience has demonstrated that approx 75% of profiles I reply to REJECT all letters from men. Why? I have no idea but I've included a screenshot below to prove this so have a look for yourself.
Think about it. This is a dating site. As a single male I would like to meet a single woman but they refuse & reject letters from all men. However, their profiles remain active for you to see. Why? What is the point of having an active profile and being online yet simultaneously you are rejecting contact from all men? Please understand that when the woman is online there is no mistake knowing this because there is a small blue dot with the word "ONLINE" next to her name indicating that she is logged on, BUT, she doesn't want to hear from you. Explain the logic to that?
That's like walking into a store and seeing all the merchandise on the shelves but you're not allowed to purchase anything and when you try to ask why, nobody is there to answer you. Explain that POF?
3. Can somebody help me please?
I attempted to contact customer service to request an answer to why profiles of women are active when they are rejecting all mail. If they wish to temporarily reject letters then the policy should be that their profiles are hidden so to avoid frustration. POF does NOT offer any contact information for such questions as per the attachment at the bottom of the page. If you notice at the bottom of the screenshot there is a link to a form that you can fill out with your concerns regarding questionable practices. I did attempt to go this route but there is NO option available to ask specific questions. They give you a limited list of options but none are suitable for the problem mentioned. In simple terms, POF is basically telling you to get lost and your concerns mean nothing to them.
4. Somebody is interested in me?
Wow, I was notified that there are women interested in me and how do I find out who they are? There is a link at the top of the page, "Interested in Me". If you click on this link here is what you will see (look at attachments). It's a blurred out image of a member. Now, if you click on that members photo/name it takes you to another page where you are informed that in order to see who this person is then you must PAY an additional fee (as per attachment). Here is the gut punch. If you can see in the image, there are two descriptions below the photo under the members name. 1. viewed you. 2. Viewed & liked you.
The "viewed & liked you" member is from outside the Province/State or Country. Yeah, women who are from outside Canada are very interested in me but locals are not. Hmm. Interesting how that works, huh?
5. Hello, how are you today?
Most women refuse to reply back to letters sent to them. I make it a point to send a very simple and neutral message. For example. "Hello, how are you tonight? I found your profile and wanted to see if you may like to chat?".
Most ignore the men's letters and rather than being civilized and decent, they ban the man from contacting them. Yeah, you get banned from sending her a letter. This only supports the suggestion that many profiles are fake for the purpose of attracting members who will spend money to use this site.
6. I can't send any more letters today?
When I purchased my token (allowing me to send letters), nowhere, I stress NOWHERE was I informed that I have a limited number of letters that I can send per day. Once I send out the limit that POF established I now must wait 24 hours before I can send another letter. But hold on a moment, I PAID to use this site which means I should be able to send all the letters I wish. Does that make sense to you? Not according to POF.
7. Did I see you somewhere else?
I decided to spend some time looking at profile from other provinces and into the US. To my surprise I found duplicate profiles from two different locations. In fact, two provinces. The photos were the same but a few minor details were changed such as age, employment and marital status. Brace yourself people, there are phony profiles on this site.
8. You live where?
I found a profile of a woman living in a town that I never heard of. I had to google it to see where it is. Turns out, according to the profile she lives in a remote community in Northern Ontario. Just for kicks I sent "her" a letter and she replied right away. Hmm. Could this be a real connection for me? "She" replied by telling me that she was happy to hear from me and wanted to get to know me. Within 5 messages she tells me that she is currently living in Nigeria and could use a few dollars to help her with groceries until her next pay check. How did I reply to that? I banned her.
9. What do you mean I can't change my personal information?
Do you want to change your username, well, PAY UP. Yeah, even information on your personal profile page cannot be changed unless you pay a monthly fee.
10. Hey lady, you're a dog.
You would think that profile would have photos of the person who is looking to meet you, right? Think again. On POF you will find profile photos of dogs, cats, horses, shoes and somebodies lunch. This is how the women attract a man on this site. How do you take somebody like that seriously?
11. I can't send you a letter because of what?
I have always suspected that POF has fake profiles and I believe this last example will support that suspicion. You will at times send a letter to a woman and discover that she will not accept letters UNLESS, you upgrade your account. What does that mean exactly. You must first agree to spend a monthly fee for additional features that you don't need at all. Oh, hold on here. What possible reason does that woman have to insist that YOU first pay an additional fee for your membership in order that you can contact her? What does she get out of this? NOTHING. Is she trying to tell you that to have the honor of contacting her you must first prove that you're frivolous with your money and that you'll do anything it takes to send her a letter even if it means she'll ignore you? Possibly, but I'm now convinced there is a darker reason. No sane person would think this way so that leaves us with only one possible explanation. POF has countless fake profiles which motivate you to spend money for a feature you do not need in order to contact a phantom member who does not exist. If this is not criminal behavior then you tell me what is? This is another example where POF goes out of its way to ignore you about these issues. I've attached a screenshot below to prove this point.
12. Photos are ripped from other sites. It's interesting when you stop and examine the woman's profile. The average number of photos per profile is 2 but many have only 1. Here is the dirty part. When you look at the photos they clearly are professional shots. Most of the profiles with 1 photo have a very deceptive profile. The woman clearly looks like she's in her mid 20's, BUT, posts her age as 50. I am now fully convinced that POF allows fake profiles to saturate their site to attract men and that is the scam.
Final thought. Perhaps it's time for POF to change its name to POS.
I think 11 examples are sufficient to give you an idea of what this site is all about.
Everything about POF is a scam. This site exists only to extort money from your pocket and nothing more.
Please, save your money because this site does not deliver anything except frustration & deception.
Tip for consumers:
If I could give POF 0 stars I would.
Save your money. This site does not work.
For those of you still wondering why is match a red flag, allow me to share from personal experience.
Before signing up I first reviewed the policy of the site and based on everything I read, it appeared (I stress, everything "appeared" to be legitimate). After joining I began to send letters to women and now I waited. Match has a system where you can see when your letter was sent and when the recipient opened/read it. In my case none of my letters were being read even though the women were online. I contacted customer service and asked them "is there a technical issue at this time with the site?". The representative told me "no, everything is working". I explained my concern only to be shocked by the answer. I was told "for your letter/s to be read, the women must first be a FULLY PAYED member of the site or she can't open your mail". What?
I said "I paid to be a member which means she should be able to open and read the letters I already paid to send to her". The answer was "sorry sir, that's not how our system works". That's like you sending a birthday card to a friend which you paid for and provided postage for and now when the mailman delivers it to your friend he first says "this card is for you but you have to pay me for it first".
The bottom line is this. Match will not allow the recipient to read your mail unless they are fully paid members. Here now is the scam. If the recipient is not a paid member then you now have the glorious option of paying an additional fee of approx. $10.00/month where they can now open and read your letter. Match has set up this system to deliberately suck money out of your pocket on top of what you have already paid but they don't clearly outline this policy on their site. This is a surprise waiting for you after you have paid what you believe is the full price.
I explained to customer service that this is an unfair policy and I should get a refund, well, they refused and that was the end of that conversation.
Now that I ended up paying an additional monthly fee I was able to use the service but with no success. About 90% of the letters I sent out were ignored. If this sounds frustrating and dishonest, just wait a moment. It get's better!
My membership was about to expire in 24 hours and I know this because Match sent me an email reminding me. They urged me to renew to continue "enjoying" their service. When my membership reached the 12 hour point of expiration I received another email asking me to renew but this time they offered me an incentive. They said if I renew before my membership expires they will give me 3 months for the price of 1. Annoyed as I already was with being mislead; I decided to renew just because of their offer. I entered my credit card information and I was informed that my membership remains active.
I returned a few hours later to take a look only to discover that I wasn't able to log into my account. Match sent me an email explaining what happened and this is where the scam comes to light. I was informed that I violated Match policy by "being rude to a member" and as a result my account has been deleted and I cannot use Match again. I called customer service only to be shocked by their reply. I was informed that Match has a policy to NEVER reveal the reason why an account has been deleted. The ONLY way I can obtain the reason is if I first go to an attorney and have a subpoena issued (at my expense) and send it to Match's head office. Only then will they tell me what I did. What insanity! Any other site will always tell you what you did in order to be banned/deleted but Match hides behind a blanket of secrecy. This tells me they can randomly ban users with no valid reason and they will not explain the reason behind their actions. To ad insult to injury, Match first charged my credit card before banning me. On top of that, I discovered through my credit card company that they didn't charge me for 1 month as promised by rather they charged me for a full 3 months instead. Oh, and Match told me that I am not entitled to any refunds either. What a surprise.
I contacted my credit card company and explained the situation to them. Fortunately I kept my correspondences from Match which clearly explained the "3 months for 1" promise they made to me. I sent all of these letters to the credit card company and with this evidence I received a full refund within 3 weeks. Had I decided to only deal with Match I wouldn't have seen a dollar refunded.
Anybody who tells you that Match is a great site is either ignorant of what goes on or they are lying to you. This site is a scam and nothing more. Don't be swayed by the fancy commercials you see on tv. This is an elaborate scam that is designed for one purpose which is to steal your money under the guise of meeting somebody.
Josh L.'s review of Match earned 3 Very Helpful votes
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