A few months back, I got an e-mail offer from EHarmony that was impossible to refuse. Their service is normally anywhere from $12.95 to $60.00 per month (roughly) depending on how long you sign up for. ($13 per month if you sign up for a year, $60 for one month) They ran a special a few months ago that I was able to sign up for $6.95 per month, for 3 months. I decided I couldn’t afford not to try EHarmony… but now that my 3 month stint is over, all I can do is hope that EHarm thinks all publicity is good publicity.
First and foremost, (and EH isn’t the only online dating company to do this..) anything over $15 per month is too expensive to be paying a computer to match you. While I find their 12 month subscription price to be reasonable, the fact that they want you to sign up for an entire year makes me feel like maybe they aren’t confident they are going to find you the love of your life.
On that note – given that some people actually PAY them $60.. profiles like this should not be something ever found on their website:
Seriously.. if I ran that website, anyone who put specific key words in their profile would be immediately flagged for staff review. (EH did remove the user upon seeing my picture tweet, and asking me to send them an e-mail with more info.)
I, personally, did not have any luck whatsoever on EHarmony. I sent out their questions to users I was interested in, and responded back to some.. but nothing ever went further than the guided communication. I don’t blame EH for that – but after a month, I was informed that my distance preference (a radius of 30 miles.. according to the most recent census, there are 3.28 million people within 30 miles of yours truly.) was too specific and they encouraged me to change this to a 100 mile radius. Now.. I know people will take drastic measures for love.. but, really.. even 30 miles away for a stranger from the internet is pushin’ it.
So, I started getting matched with people far out of city limits, which was really a waste of time. But then, after another couple days, I was alerted that my age range of 27 to 34 was too specific, and I should broaden those requirements as well. Are you joking?
I have decided that I got a sweet deal because no one uses EHarmony anymore. I still think that OKCupid is your best deal out there – it’s free, and you might get some kooky people in there (see rest of blog), but it’s easy to use, and it’s fun.
So, long story short.. In my opinion: Eharmony sucks.
**
Totally unrelated to EHarmony: Tomorrow night (Wednesday, August 28, 2013) at 10:00pm Central Standard Time, A_Dude79 and I will be podcasting live. We have Catfish/Nigerian Scammers, “The First Move” and the burning question of “Is Facebook ‘Friendship’ the new Phone Number when it comes to dating?” on the agenda. If you haven’t tuned in before, tomorrow would be a great night to do so. We take calls and feedback from Twitter as well. Put it on your calendar and don’t miss it! Link HERE.
Soon2BeCatLady 
tl;dr: it fucking sucks
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Yep.
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EHarmony told me that there was no one for me in the entire country. That was all types of awesome.
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Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!?
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I filled out the questionnaire and got a message back that there was no one in their entire database that was a match for me after I opened up my search to the entire US.
I’m just taking it to mean that there is no one out there who could handle how awesome I am. I mean, I’m only 5’2″, so that sh*t is pretty concentrated. *Flips hair.*
It was disappointing for a moment. Then I just laughed for a really long time.
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Completely agree. I had the same issues…30 miles expanded. I’m getting matches up to 2 hours driving time away. I really don’t want to travel to date.
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EH is a sham. I also took advantage of the discount and decided to give it a whirl. Have been on the site for nearly 5 months and have nothing to show for it. The majority of matches received were of men where I would be required to cross bridges and pay tolls in order to meet. No thank you. A busy gal like me does not have time to travel great lengths to date.
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Well. My boyfriend thinks that paying for an online dating service is a total scam. We met on okcupid, and we’re doing okay. 😉
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Like most others, I’ve had far more luck on the free sites than the paying one I’ve been on (Guardian Soul Mates which is UK based only). Total waste of time and I had one date – and she messaged me – despite messaging at the same rate at POF and OKCupid. Save your money, or better still if you feel you have to spend something then upgrade to A-list on OKCupid. At least you get some pretty cool features with that.
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I stopped using eharmony a few weeks ago after one too many awkward dates lol. My coworker showed me cliqie.com and I’m a big fan of that over the others in terms of actually meeting people vs. just entertainment. It has a different approach that feels less sketchy cause you and your friends essentially act as “wingmen”. I like that it helps you find things to do too. Skout’s okay too, but still has it’s fair share of creepers
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OkCupid is one of the best choices, it is easy to use and free. I met my boyfriend that way and we’ve been together since December.
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eharmony is a fraud and does not at all in any aspect live up to any of it’s claims, matching or profile matching. The matches are never within, personality,color,education or rea desires. Eharmony throws into your marches unavailable, discontinued members, unavailable matches and matches that DO NOT MARCH ANY PART OF WGO WHO WANT TO DATE,DESIRE TO DATE, NOR ATTACTED TOO….EHARMONY IS A MONEY MARKETING SCAM.
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I found it very difficult to UNSUBSCRIBE from EHARMONY, all sorts of barriers wer put up until the period had clocked over to another 3 months and they had accessed my bank a/c.NEVER AGAIN!
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EHarmony has gotten worse in the year or so that I have been on and off of the site.
When I started, I would get match with one or two men each day. Initially, the men seemed to have common interests and similar goals in life, and were roughly in line with my criteria for height and health consciousness (read: not 5’7 and 240 pounds). In the past few months, I have had just one reasonably well matched man.
Not only does Eharmony pair you with profiles that lack photos (unpaying members who cannot respond or initiate contact with you), but it seems like Eharmony’s filter is completely broken – I get matched with 5’2 Asian men (nothing against them, but I am a strapping 5’9 scandinavian gal who specifically said I was not interested in Asian guys). I get matched with guys who are politically far to the right of Ted Cruz when I am an unabashed liberal (and I specifically said that politics was an important factor for me). Lots of the “matches” read “Ernest is slightly outside of your matching criteria, but we think you’ll like him anyway!”) No, EH, I don’t. I let my subscription expire. Will I return if Eharmony tempts me with a $12 per month rate? Possibly grudgingly.
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Don’t do it!!!
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I too took another plunge at EH and I bought a 6 month subscription. Having lived in LA, driving is not too big of a consideration since everything out there is at least an hour so I put a 100 mile radius and in the 6 months, I never received even one match; not one.
I had the same sense of confusion that within 100 miles there are at least 3-4 million people and I wasn’t even matchable to one person? Thanks EH. It isn’t like my ego wasn’t feeling fragile enough.
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This site is all a big fat scam. Lots of profiles with no pictures and no questions answered – I can’t bring myself to believe that someone serious took the whole of that personality test and never bothered to answer any questions to make girls who read his profile interested and wishing to know him even better. Excuse me, I did not pay to get unpaying members or those who ‘visited over a month ago’ – most of my matches are exactly that!
Besides, even if I get matched to people with pictures and answers, not a single profile I get actually meets my most desired criteria. And excuse me, my age range is 32 to 38, and my distance range is several countries – I really do want to find that special someone and I’m totally ready to travel or even move. Is EH telling me there is nobody withing that range who meets my preferences? Puh-lease!
Still another thing – if those guys are supposed to match me so well, just why do things never go further than guided communication? Something is really wrong with their personality test if it can’t spot a guy who is emotionally mature and really determined to start a serious relationship, and I’m not even speaking of starting a family for that matter!
And on top of it all, this ‘brilliant’ system matched me with a guy who was supposed to be a perfect match to me in all respects, but the result was me wasting a whole year of my precious time and getting really hurt because we not only turned out to be different, we turned out to be polar. I’m not accusing him, you can’t make anyone love you, right, but I’m just wondering what kind of a test that is and what kind of a matching system that is. Someone perfectly mathed to my personality dropped me so easily after a year of knowing each other, and never looked back?
So I’ll let my profile expire and I’ll never visit this site again and I strongly *not* recommend anyone subscribing to EH! Very disappointing (((
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Their billing system and their policies are difficult to follow. Please make sure you don’t have the auto renew on or you will be paying for the rest of your life, as I am doing now. I got nowhere with the customer service rep. I called to cancel – he said he cannot do that because they didn’t quite charge me the full amount yet. I have not used their services for the last 2-3 months and I no longer need it. Yet I pay for it today. I am yet to hear from the safety department who aparently is the top of this pyramid of jumbled customer care. I don’t want the service… yet I am being charged. Stay away unless you really read the rules.
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Close your bank account and cancel the credit card. They cannot bill an unexisting account.
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It’s really a joke, $659.40 a year and most of my matches were 3 hrs or more away, I don’t have that kind of money to just through out there, I’m just a small factory worker in a small town, as for okcupid it’s a joke also, there is only three people in over 100 miles from me in mn.. and most of the ones I did talk to only wanted to talk on line and not go out ARE THEY STILL MARRIED????? what a JOKE
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Dang I’m three days in and I could already tell. I want my money back
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