Problems with Online Dating Services

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There can be a variety of problems with using online dating sites.

* Some sites expect members to sign up "blind", eHarmony for example, with no preview of the type of profiles they will get to see. On other sites, some profiles are not actually real people, but "bait" put there by the site owners to attract new paying members. Both Yahoo Personals and Match.com have received several complaints of this tactic. Some users spam sites with "fake" profiles that are in reality advertisements to other services, such as prostitution or multi-level marketing. A majority of dating sites keep profiles online for months or even years since the last time the person has logged in, thereby making it seem as though they have more available members than they actually do. Many sites offer the option to sort search results based on activity, however.

* Most members are enticed to join dating websites with free or low-priced "trial" memberships advertised on many other websites. These trial memberships lack many of the features of the full membership, including the ability to contact other members or reply to e-mail from other members. On sites which require credit card information to join at all, these trial memberships often automatically become full memberships at the end of the trial period and charge the full monthly fee, without any additional action from the member and regardless of whether the member has actually used the services or not. For paying members, it is often unclear whether a potential contact has a full subscription and whether he or she will be able to reply at all.

* Some members have expressed complaints about the billing practices of certain dating sites. In some cases, trial memberships that were canceled within the trial period were automatically re-billed even after canceling. To avoid these potential problems, some have advised using a virtual credit card number which is offered by several credit card companies.

* Even when members' profiles are "real", there is still an inherent lack of trust with other members. Many members misrepresent themselves by telling flattering 'white lies' about their height, weight and age, or using old or misleading photos. Members can, of course, ask for an up-to-date photograph before meeting others. Matrimonials Sites are a variant of online dating sites, and these are geared towards meeting people for the purpose of getting married. Gross misrepresentation is less likely on these sites than on 'casual dating' sites. Casual dating sites are often geared more towards short term (and implicitly sexual) relationships.

* Online predators find online dating sites especially attractive, because such sites give them an unending supply of new targets of opportunity for Internet fraud. A recent study, led by Dr. Paige Padgett from the University of Texas Health Science Center, found that there was a false degree of safety assumed by women looking for love on the internet, exposing them to stalking, fraud, and sexual violence.[1] Some online dating sites, like True.com, conduct background checks on their members in an attempt to avoid problems of this nature.
* Unbalanced sex ratio in general, the total number of males seeking females on any given dating site are many times more than the number of females seeking males, creating an unbalanced sex ratio.