Single Mom | Single Mom Blog | Ms. Single Mama » eharmony sucks

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mssinglemama — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 01:38:32 +0000

When you’re a single mom or a single dad online dating is sometimes the only viable option. You can’t get out of the house at night without shelling out for a sitter so one solution is shopping for your men or women online.

I personally didn’t have much luck dating online but I largely blame E-Harmony for that. E-Harmony sucks. But there are so many other sites out there and when you can try one for free – why not?

My fellow single mom blogger, Rachel Sarah “Single Mom Seeking,” has teamed up with SingleParentLoveLife.com for a little promotion…so you can get two months absolutely FREE. Try it out and report back here on your experiences.

Here’s the note from Rachel,

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E-Harmony Really Does Suck: Worst web site of the year by Time Magazine

mssinglemama — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 16:01:40 +0000

My experience with E-Harmony over the past year has been a continuous disappointment. I think it’s one of the biggest scams out there, preying on innocent singles who are truly looking for love. Therefore, I want to keep getting the word out there to avoid the site all together. Instead sites like Yahoo Personals and Match.com have served myself and my friends much better. Also, just discovered Oodle, which collects all of the personal posts in your area. So you can see who is who and where their personal ad is listed.

Because in the end, the E-Harmony matching system is a joke. And Time Magazine agrees, they’ve named Eharmony.com as the worst web site of 2007. Read the article, here.

E-Harmony’s Matches are Dead Wrong

mssinglemama — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 13:08:26 +0000

I’ve been an online dating “lurker” since my divorce. I joined eHarmony on last year’s very depressing Valentine’s Day.

I was still living at my mom’s house which is out in the woods. There were no men in sight except for the biker across the street.

I took the eHarmony personality test. Be careful with this, because once you take it – you never get another chance. Make sure you’re awake, relatively chipper and feeling completely open and honest with yourself.

After the test eHarmony served up my first seven matches. I was excited – “Look, an inbox full of men! Just for me!” But I couldn’t see the photos. They wanted my money. But at the time it wasn’t in the budget – at all – so I started sifting through the descriptions.

One guy actually sneaked his e-mail into his profile, “EHarmony is expensive,” he wrote, “E-mail me at dude@dude.com.” Yay! A guy who likes to beat the system. I like that so I sent him a lonely Valentine’s Day e-mail. Days later there’s still no response. I had even attached a picture. Hmmmm. I forget about it and try to stomach my first virtual rejection. It stings a little.

Three months later I get a response, “Hi, this is Carlise, Dan’s friend. I am checking his e-mail because he actually died in a car accident last October.”

My heart cries for Dan for a moment and then my sympathy for he and his family is replaced wtih anger at eHarmony. How could they do that? Then it hits me. The “matches” on eHarmony are not paying members. Many just popped in, took the personality test, and then never returned – or even worse – died.

I still became a paying member. I’m was too tempted by all of those new “matches” they e-mail you every morning. So after I spent over $100 to activate my account I was like a kid at a candy store – hurrying to scope out every man’s photograph.

I didn’t think one of them was cute. I e-mail a few any way but never got responses – because they’re probably inactive accounts. I e-mailed eHarmony asking for a refund. They told me my matching preferences weren’t broad enough, that I should be open to dating people of all ages from all over the world.

After receiving over 155 matches, only one led to a lunch date, and that was a complete failure.

Bottom line: don’t waste your money on eHarmony.

My friend Abby, my bestest single mom friend, had three very interesting and very good looking dates from Yahoo Personals last week.

The reason Yahoo and Match are better online dating sites than eHarmony:

1. They’re inexpensive.

2. You can see rough dates of when matches last logged in (although both sites should improve this feature).

3. You can control your searches, don’t let a computer match you - especially if 80% of those matches aren’t even active on the site.

See my other online dating entries for more background on this and some very important online dating tips.

E-harmony Dating Review: for the single parent or any other dater

mssinglemama — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 20:50:30 +0000

Let me preface this by saying, I went into this online dating thing with total enthusiasm and a very open mind. After all, I’ve heard that friends of friends have actually gotten engaged after meeting online. And with very little free time on my hands – why not try it out?

I started out as a voyeur.

I would scope out the men on Match.com. They all looked like loser players, so I moved on to eHarmony. Those commercials are just so enticing. Could those people be real? They have to be, right? So I sign up.

I take the super personality tests of all personality tests and then wait as my matches come in. Some are 47, some are 37, some are fishermen living in Alaska, others are construction workers in my own back yard. Not that I have anything against fishermen or construction workers or older men. But I’m looking for a young professional, college educated, like-minded individual, not someone who I clearly would have nothing in common with.

I check my match settings. They’re set at preferences the system is clearly ignoring.

There are a few interesting men who do pop into my inbox…so I e-mail them. I wait, days, weeks and never hear a word. Then I realize – these men probably signed up for free and then jumped the boat. Or, even worse, they were probably paying members years ago. The thing about eHarmony is that you actually have to turn your matching off when you cancel your membership, otherwise they keep you in the system. It’s why they can boast so many “active” members and keep sending you dozens and dozens of useless new matches each day.

I actually e-mailed eHarmony telling them I thought their matching system was crap. They wrote me a long winded e-mail back telling me I needed to expand my matching preferences. They refused to give me a refund of my $110 membership fee. So, I stayed on, after all I had paid for three months – why not use it?

Recently I found a match that peaked my interest. A single dad, college educated, cute and his profile description was intriguing. We meet for a lunch date. A nice, safe lunch date. This after talking on the phone several times. He shows up, I stand up, and I’m towering above him.

“Oh, damn,” I think. “Why in the hell did I wear these heels?”

He was very, very sweet and it was a nice lunch – but there wasn’t an ounce of chemistry. Our personalities couldn’t have been more incompatible. So much for the eHarmony matching “system.” I’ll keep you posted if I do find compatible matches, but so far it has been a joke.

I will say – if you are going to try online dating – go with a site where you can search profiles yourself. And there is no personality matching system that can beat your own gut instinct.

If you are new to eHarmony you must read this post on the eHarmony Blog (yes, there’s a blog on eHarmony. It’s fantastic. Consider it the eHarmony bible. Go now by clicking here.)

****UPDATE****

Check out PlentyofFish.com, it’s quickly becoming the most popular online dating web site out there because – it’s FREE. I haven’t tried it myself (no need as I’m now in a fantastic relationship – fyi – I met him in a bar, the good old fashioned way).

Another great place to scope out all of the single men or women who have profiles posted in your area is Oodle.com. Go to personals and search by zip code, the site lists all of the people with profiles in your area. Pretty spiffy.

And then there’s always MySpace – also free. Most of my twenty-something friends meet their men here…send them a friendly message or two and then exchange numbers.

My friend have also had a lot of luck on Yahoo Personals…cheaper than Match and easier to use.

»This website has moved to MsSingleMama.com.

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