4 ms·

NY man sues dating website Match.com for deception

23 points by absconditus 17y ago

Goladus 17y ago
Unless you are a paid member, you cannot even read messages sent to you. Also, their homepage is always a gigantic advertisement, with a tiny little bit of text, "member sign in," up near the top. Old correspondence is deleted after something like 30 or 60 days. Pictures are limited in size. Match.com is pretty lazy about retaining members and encouraging interaction and seems to prefer to focus on marketing rather than improving its core product. Okcupid is superior in almost every way. Match.com has made a few attempts at upgrading their services but they seem to have been mostly cosmetic or invisible/infrastructure changes. When I left, "recent views" was still questionably accurate, the send-email page still had no link back to the original profile (just a partial text dump of it), and generally poor use of screen space. Not as bad as eHarmony, but okcupid is better and free. I met a few cool women through match.com, but finally got fed up with it. I don't care enough to sue but I have no sympathy for match.
- wglb 17y ago
  Well the match.com business model is a bit difficult. If their service is successful, two people meet and eventually take their profile down and leave match behind. There is no retention, because a successful experience removes two people from their customer list. In fact, there is a stage of dating that follows First Date: "I took my profile down". So attracting customers rather than the long-term experience would be their priority. I met my wife on match, and many mutual friends met their now spouse there.
msluyter 17y ago
Seriously? A.) Use okcupid.com -- much better site. B.) I agree that match.com should probably identify which members actually are capable of responding, and it might increase signup rates if it notified non-paying members when they received a response and then allowed them to see what they'd missed once they paid. But imho, online dating is inherently "humiliating and disappointing."
- sielskr 17y ago
  imho, online dating is inherently "humiliating and disappointing." Even if that is true, that is no reason for the design of match.com to increase the humiliation or disappointment.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 17y ago
    I can see why some people find it disappointing, but why would you find it humiliating? Disclosure: I met a lot of women online (including the one I married) and generally enjoyed it, but I'm always interested in hearing other perspectives.
    - foppr 17y ago
      Hey, I don't get the humiliating part either. Why are you disclosing that you met and married a woman online?
    - benmathes 17y ago
      It's entirely likely that match.com's setup drastically reduces your response rate in a deceptive fashion. If you contact 500 people on match.com and not a single one responds, you'd probably be humiliated.
      - jambalaya 17y ago
        I wasn't humiliated from 1 date in 6 months with Match.com. I was humiliated briefly with eHarmony when I fell for a fake letter of interest. I was very excited and I emailed all my friends "Hey look this is great!" Then I slowly realized over the course of the week that I had been duped. I received no further response and was embarrassed. It should have been obvious with the spelling mistakes and the woman being listed as a High School English teacher :) I'm moving to offline approaches. I should get out more any ways. I may try okcupid or something in the future.
    - rbanffy 17y ago
      Interesting... I met my first wife online, more than 20 years ago, well before the web, over a Minitel-based chat system accessed via an Apple II (mine) and a Matra dedicated terminal (hers). I met my second wife at a party. I must be truly disconnected from my time.
joel_feather 17y ago
It is deception. If you pay to contact a person, but the person has no way of responding, then you have been deceived. You cannot even tell the person to upgrade or so, since you cannot contact the person.
shiranaihito 17y ago
A New York man sued dating website Match.com on Tuesday for misleading members by posting profiles of prospective dates who are unable to respond to any interest in them because they do not have a paid subscription. Charging for the ability to send messages is pretty standard practise on most dating sites. It's how they make money. Unsurprisingly, this is just another typical American greed lawsuit. As a sidenote, Match.com does engage in some slimy practises too. For example, your subscription will get automatically renewed, and your credit card charged. If you ask about this, they'll say it's because they want to provide you with "uninterrupted service", which is, of course, a load of bullshit. In the event that your subscription runs out, you can have it back up in like two minutes.
- shiranaihito 17y ago
  Downvotes for "typical American greed lawsuit"? That's what it is though. There's no other country where McDonald's could get sued for millions for serving hot coffee that's hot.
bts 17y ago
Sorry, but how is this hacker news?
- avner 17y ago
  It highlights a flawed business model that misleads unsuspecting users to pay for a one-way communication tool through sugar coated TV ads.

23 points by absconditus 17y ago

Unless you are a paid member, you cannot even read messages sent to you. Also, their homepage is always a gigantic advertisement, with a tiny little bit of text, "member sign in," up near the top. Old correspondence is deleted after something like 30 or 60 days. Pictures are limited in size. Match.com is pretty lazy about retaining members and encouraging interaction and seems to prefer to focus on marketing rather than improving its core product. Okcupid is superior in almost every way. Match.com has made a few attempts at upgrading their services but they seem to have been mostly cosmetic or invisible/infrastructure changes. When I left, "recent views" was still questionably accurate, the send-email page still had no link back to the original profile (just a partial text dump of it), and generally poor use of screen space. Not as bad as eHarmony, but okcupid is better and free. I met a few cool women through match.com, but finally got fed up with it. I don't care enough to sue but I have no sympathy for match.

wglb 17y ago
Well the match.com business model is a bit difficult. If their service is successful, two people meet and eventually take their profile down and leave match behind. There is no retention, because a successful experience removes two people from their customer list. In fact, there is a stage of dating that follows First Date: "I took my profile down". So attracting customers rather than the long-term experience would be their priority. I met my wife on match, and many mutual friends met their now spouse there.

msluyter 17y ago

Seriously? A.) Use okcupid.com -- much better site. B.) I agree that match.com should probably identify which members actually are capable of responding, and it might increase signup rates if it notified non-paying members when they received a response and then allowed them to see what they'd missed once they paid. But imho, online dating is inherently "humiliating and disappointing."

sielskr 17y ago
imho, online dating is inherently "humiliating and disappointing." Even if that is true, that is no reason for the design of match.com to increase the humiliation or disappointment.
- HeyLaughingBoy 17y ago
  I can see why some people find it disappointing, but why would you find it humiliating? Disclosure: I met a lot of women online (including the one I married) and generally enjoyed it, but I'm always interested in hearing other perspectives.
  - foppr 17y ago
    Hey, I don't get the humiliating part either. Why are you disclosing that you met and married a woman online?
  - benmathes 17y ago
    It's entirely likely that match.com's setup drastically reduces your response rate in a deceptive fashion. If you contact 500 people on match.com and not a single one responds, you'd probably be humiliated.
    - jambalaya 17y ago
      I wasn't humiliated from 1 date in 6 months with Match.com. I was humiliated briefly with eHarmony when I fell for a fake letter of interest. I was very excited and I emailed all my friends "Hey look this is great!" Then I slowly realized over the course of the week that I had been duped. I received no further response and was embarrassed. It should have been obvious with the spelling mistakes and the woman being listed as a High School English teacher :) I'm moving to offline approaches. I should get out more any ways. I may try okcupid or something in the future.
  - rbanffy 17y ago
    Interesting... I met my first wife online, more than 20 years ago, well before the web, over a Minitel-based chat system accessed via an Apple II (mine) and a Matra dedicated terminal (hers). I met my second wife at a party. I must be truly disconnected from my time.

joel_feather 17y ago

It is deception. If you pay to contact a person, but the person has no way of responding, then you have been deceived. You cannot even tell the person to upgrade or so, since you cannot contact the person.

shiranaihito 17y ago

A New York man sued dating website Match.com on Tuesday for misleading members by posting profiles of prospective dates who are unable to respond to any interest in them because they do not have a paid subscription. Charging for the ability to send messages is pretty standard practise on most dating sites. It's how they make money. Unsurprisingly, this is just another typical American greed lawsuit. As a sidenote, Match.com does engage in some slimy practises too. For example, your subscription will get automatically renewed, and your credit card charged. If you ask about this, they'll say it's because they want to provide you with "uninterrupted service", which is, of course, a load of bullshit. In the event that your subscription runs out, you can have it back up in like two minutes.

shiranaihito 17y ago
Downvotes for "typical American greed lawsuit"? That's what it is though. There's no other country where McDonald's could get sued for millions for serving hot coffee that's hot.

bts 17y ago

Sorry, but how is this hacker news?

avner 17y ago
It highlights a flawed business model that misleads unsuspecting users to pay for a one-way communication tool through sugar coated TV ads.