1. Tips and tricks and hacks on how to use eHarmony effectively.
2. How-tos on responding to matches.
3. Polls on how to use eHarmony effectively.
4. A photo of an eHarmony success story on each page.
5. The web’s only commercial-free source of promo codes.
6. Coverage of eHarmony acquisitions or new site features.

On the other hand

1. Tips and tricks how to get a refund.
2. Detailed instructions on how to close one’s account.
3. Scathing site reviews republished from all over.
4. Scathing reviews of every add-on service eHarmony tries to peddle.
5. The most in-depth coverage of the same-sex-matching lawsuit and aftermath.
6. Immediate coverage on any eHarmony “bad press”, such as the “Navigating the One Night Stand” brouhaha.

Why, yes, we very much like eHarmony to stick around. We’d like each of their members to get the most out of their memberships. We’d like eHarmony to get better. To this means, disgruntled users are always welcome, because their stories show that eHarmony has a hell of a lot more to improve, and, goodness, it doesn’t work for everyone.

Our promise though: If you’re committed that eHarmony has no room to improve, and that it should DIE DIE DIE, we’re happy to publish your views, and we hope you stick around. Keep the heckling to the minimum, please.

eHarmony Blog doesn’t recommend eHarmony, one way or the other. Read the blog, get informed, ask questions, make your decision. That’s what we’re here for.

Here is last month’s supply of consumer complaints against eHarmony posted on the leading gripe website ConsumerAffairs.com, plus our comments. Some of this month’s complaints are valid and justified, thus highlighted, while the rest are “buyer beware — read the fine print” or may be resolved with a call to customer service.

No, we are not eHarmony, we just like to help out or comment. If you have an opinion as well, post them at the end of the article.

#1 kevin of fort worth, TX February 22, 2010

Does somebody know where the mangement or owners investors are located? I need info for e-harmony? I need an address, because I can’t get money back, even though I canceled several times. This is the only way yo deal with this kind of crap. I’ve read enough and talked enough. Can’t beleive company takes this much money.

eHarmony
888 E Walnut St, 2nd Floor
Pasadena, CA 91101-1802
(626) 795-4814

Kevin, they’re in the phone book.

#2 Ann of Atlanta, GA February 19, 2010

Wow. Where do I start? I have been a user (off and on) of eHarmony for several years. This past fall, I re-activated my online membership because they had a three-month deal for 19.95 per month (which was a savings off their regular price). After two months or so, I had not received ONE match from them (the site matches you with potential romantic partners) and emails them to you. I called to complain about this. When I spoke to the customer service person, they could not give me any reasons why I had not received a match in that time. They told me that they would give me three months for free (additional months to what I had already paid) to see if I would receive any matches in that time. I live in Atlanta, GA, a city of almost 5 million people. There is NO WAY I would not have received a match during the time period unless something sketchy was going on.

At five months in, I attempted to contact customer service about my issues (still no matches at five months). THere is NO contact information for customer service anywhere on the eHarmony site. NOTHING. No email, no chat feature, no PHONE NUMBER. The only way I found their phone number was to do a search on Google for “eHarmony Customer Service Phone Number”. I did find the number that ANOTHER disgruntled customer had posted. I called and was told that there was nothing they could do except for refund one month of my fees (19.95). They told me that they understood my concerns but …. basically the customer service person had no idea what to say. I could tell she had heard this before…many times. I told her that refunding my 19.95 was not enough. She said there was no one else I could talk to but that someone else would email me and I could escalate the problem with them. I feel there are some major fraudulent activities going on with this company. They do not want their customers to figure out how to contact them to complain.

They also put every one of the customers on “automatic renewal” without letting them know it (it is in the fine print but EVERYONE is put on that without doing anything to agree to it). Then, they charge your credit card, without you having any idea. ANOTHER issue I have is that you are unable to get your “profile” pulled down off their site, as you are easily able to do on most other Interet dating site. I don’t want my information up there, but they continue to deliver me as a “match” to others, even though I have requested them to NOT do that and even though I am no longer active on their site. PLEASE HELP THE CONSUMER FROM THIS COMPANY.

Ann, my comments, one by one

1. Their “all accounts auto-renew without notice” policy has been around since August 2000. I’m surprised you’ve never experienced it before being a “user (off and on) for several years”. Anyway,

2. “something sketchy” means your Match Settings are too restrictive. Your age, gender and geography ultimately determine how many matches you’ll ever receive. The CS rep you spoke with didn’t know how to advise you. He or she would have told you how to expand your settings or diagnose your account.

3. Yes, eHarmony tries their very best never to publish their toll free number. Their phone number can be found on this article. If you did Google “eHarmony Customer Service Phone Number”, you would have found the same article.

Based on reader comments, complaining about lack of matches won’t work to get you a refund. There are other ways; see our article How to get a refund from eHarmony.

4. If you want to remove your profile, you can close your account. How to close your account. It’s true that they don’t make it easy.

5. Mention of the autorenew feature appears no less than three times — and never in fine print — during the ordering process. It’s hard to miss.

6. If you want to stop receiving matches, you have to turn off matching. The instructions are right in each of those “new match notification” emails.

#3 William of Jacksonville, FL February 18, 2010

I went onto this silly website because I kept hearing all the buzz about how great it is, and I can say from direct, personal experience that it’s a useless site. I spent several minutes answering several pages of questions only to receive a big, annoying page that informed me that I was not worthy to use their services. It rudely informed me that I fell into the 20% of people who “cannot benefit from E harmony”. It then implied that I was dishonest and that they had a reputation to uphold. ok! fine! So I’m not good enough…why did they waste several minutes of my life? I answered their flotsam as honestly as I could (after all, what motivation would I have to be dishonest?) Success stories? bolony! Big lot of nonsense!

William, be thankful that this “baloney site” didn’t take your money.

#4 Karen of Camberwell, Australia February 18, 2010

This is the worst dating site in the history of the world. Pathetic. Impossible to navigate. No chance to search for your own matches. They send you people who are clearly not what you’re looking for and all the while keep billing you exortibant amounts of money. The thing needs to be shut down.

Well said, Karen.

#5 Mary of Acton, MA February 13, 2010

eHarmony takes up half my email screen! I am not interested in their services. I wish to have them eliminated from my email. I’m too old for the dating game! Their presence is annoying–they should not be allowed to repeat their message over and over on the same screen.

Mary, you are seeing a website banner advertisement. Advertisements pay for the content and the upkeep of the websites you use every day, just like how it does for paper newspapers. If you want to block advertisements there are software you can install on your computer to do that. If everyone blocks ads, though, who will pay for the content and the upkeep of the websites?

#6 Kathy of Johnston, RI February 12, 2010

This is the worst so called “relationship” site ever! I signed up about a year ago and after taking much time to fill out their very in dept questionnaire I was told sorry are services are not suited for you and we cannot match you up with anyone. WHAT? Out of the thousands of men out there looking for a relationship they knew just by what I answered that their was not one person they thought would be a match for me?

And now a year later I tried to sign on again to try yet again and didn’t even get as far as the questionnaire this time. They simply said we cannot match you.

Talk about unprofessional and making a person feel worthless and more alone then you were before you signed up! These people need to be put in their place it’s a good thing they don’t run a hot line or they could really ruin people’s lives.

No they don’t run a hotline. Be thankful, Kathy, that they didn’t take your money, unlike the other posters here.

#7 marybeth of pueblo, CO February 12, 2010

Joined E-Harmony hpoing to find someone to date, most of what i got as matches are in other states. Big thing that bothers me is they have no phone or e-mail site. there is no one that i can talk to about this

Their phone number is in this article. You can change your Match Settings to receive matches closer to home.

#8 Ryan of Worcester, MA February 10, 2010

I have found on several occassions that matches tend to be lost on follow up even after they have initiated correspondence and accepted an invitation for direct email correspondence through eharmony. I believe eharmony blocks such communication so as to prolong membership. (The intended recipient of the email doesn’t receive the mail and the sender is led to believe the match has chosen not to reply). Quite an unethical practice.

Ryan, it is more likely that your matches are no longer interested. Although you may be right.

#9 Madison of Pasadena, CA February 5, 2010

You defintely have to pay attention to the confirmation page and the terms and conditions. The auto-renewal feature is listed on both pages, which makes it legal and legitimate. There isn’t anything a lawyer can do, nor your credit card company. Your bank will just call eHarmony and ask them about the charges.

Once the rep has explained to the bank about the auto renewal and the policy, the bank won’t go any further. The won’t continue with the dispute. They will just block it from happening again.. that is it. The number to contact eH is 1-800-. They are there from 4am PST to 12am PST.

Great post, Madison. Did you get the information from this blog?

#10 laurie of westwood, MI February 4, 2010

EHarmony is a complete fraud. do not sign up they have the most unethical sick practices I have ever seen. you will be scammed in everyway. if already a done deal, write the better business bureau in LA, contact your credit card company before they auto renew. I found email addresses most bogus but i kept writing. I finally got a refund or at least they said they would give me one. I now have it in writing to provide to my credit card company. how much fraud does there need to be for consumer affairs and bbb shut them down! this is outrageous.

Congratulations, Laurie, for getting your refund!

#11 Frances of Los Angeles, CA February 4, 2010

I subscribed to 3 months at eharmony.com. On January 3, 2010 they sent me an email saying that I had made my FINAL payment for my 3 month subscription. On February 4, 2010 they informed me that they had “automatically renewed” my subscription and had taken additional amount out of my account. When I called them at 1-800- they told me that in the original agreement they said that they would “automatically renew” my subscription. I told them that if I wanted more than 3 months I would have subscribed to more than 3 months.

They now have my money. I called my bank and put a stop on any further withdrawals from my account by their company. This is a scam! They are unethical and are not tranparent. I would NEVER use their services in the future! I have read the consumer affairs board and I see that I am not the only person that eharmony has duped. I am on a limited budget and now I am in dire straits thanks to their antics.

Frances, mention of the autorenew feature appears no less than three times — and never in fine print — during the ordering process. It’s hard to miss.

If the eHarmony payment has put you in a financial situation you can get a full refund. Call to get a refund from eHarmony and ask for a supervisor and tell your situation (politely).

#12 Chris of Wayne, NJ February 4, 2010

I joined E-Harmony, and after my 3 months were up, I canceled my subscription. I continued to get matches, and learned I had to “close” my account. However, my profile remained in their data base, along with my credit card information. I next learned the only way to have your profile completely deleted is to write them, which I did. They following is the response I received:

“Thank you for contacting eHarmony Customer Care. I appreciate your concern regarding your profile and I will be happy to assist you. Currently, we don’t have such functionality to remove your profile completely, however, as your account is closed, I can assure you that none of your matches nor us will be able to get access with your information. As America’s Trusted #1 Relationship site, your security and privacy are very important to us. We look forward to helping you find the love of your life.”

I would like the information I provided to them to be removed completely since I am no longer using their services. HELP!?!

Chris, see Step 5 of Your complete guide: How to cancel eHarmony.

#13 Kathleen of Niles, MI February 2, 2010

My story is identical to Donna of Merrick, NY January 24, 2010. I clicked on a banner ad on the website that read I could purchase their services for approx. 19/mo for three months when I entered a code. There was nowhere to enter the code and I ended up being charged nearly 140. I immediately sent an email request cancellation. The response said little more than “you may have better results if you complete your About Me information” HUH? I completed a follow up survey about their customer service indicating customer service was poor and the issue wasn’t resolved. There was no response. Since then I have sent half a dozen emails requesting a refund and have closed my account. I have requested all contact be via email so I have documentation that can be used as evidence to present to consumer complaint agencies.

Kathleen, the fastest way to get this done is calling them. Trust me.

#1 Mary of Edina, MN February 1, 2010

I cannot give you any information about the company included and especially their phone number because they don’t want ANYONE ESPECIALLY their customers to contact them. I spent over an hour 2 or 3 times to try to FIND OUT HOW TO ASK THEM A STUPID question; if it is not in there commonly asked questions your screwed. No “contact us” option ANYWHERE!

Yes, Mary, eHarmony tries their very best never to publish their toll free number. Their phone number can be found on this article.

eHarmony Labs (and subsequently the official blog) shared this week the findings of four University of California Berkeley (UCB) psychology majors after their study on the “Relative Importance of Physical Attractiveness on Initial Attractiveness and Dating Online“.

The Labs piece, “A picture in your profile might get you a date, but not a relationship!” reads like a rebuttal to last month’s OKCupid Blog piece on the 4 myths of profile photos that was featured on the New York Times two weeks ago. The Labs piece reads like a half-baked “Hey, here’s proof that good photos don’t matter in a long-term-relationship dating site.”

I reviewed these students’ findings and, funny, I came up with different conclusions:

• Lab Study 1 and 2: UCB undergraduates are shallow. (sample size = 100)
• Online Dating Study 1: White 40-year-olds who are interested in casual dating are shallow. (sample size = 150)
• Online Dating Study 2: White 40-year-olds don’t end relationships because their partner is ugly. (sample size = 150)

What I hate the most about social experiments is the limitation of survey data. I don’t know how they expect an person to do the extrapolation. Publishing psych lab results is stupid because your data will be based only on observing willing participants who live within your limited community. And then, what’s your sample size? You can’t honestly ask me to think that results from a survey of a hundred people is reliable, unless we’re watching Family Feud.

Physicists agree that oil and water don’t mix. Social scientists can never agree on anything as basic. The unrepeatable nature of social studies is the main reason why I favored math and physical sciences.

Social experiments are a good pastime for psych students and sociology undergrads. It’s only good for impressing professors and consuming study grants.

Furthermore, publishing study results like these is dangerous because there will be idiots (e.g., those who buy and read magazines filled with this crap) who use this information to make life decisions. Who checks for observer bias?

This brings us to ask what eHarmony Labs is for. After all, would findings from observing behaviors of residents from the Los Angeles Area be at all representative of behaviors across North America? No. eHarmony Labs is only there for show, for smoke and mirrors. eHarmony Labs is there only for public relations.

Exactly like what we’ve always known (and incidentally, what our patented Compatibility Matching Services is based on), a study by Freud et al found out that … you need to join eHarmony and subscribe for a year.

(Also, do you expect eHarmony Labs to release the results (data + methodology + conclusions) of any research related to eHarmony’s core business of Compatibility Matching?)

Do you want to know where the real social experiments are? The real experiments are in the “feedback loop” that eHarmony uses through the site. eHarmony does more A/B Testing than anything you can think of. In a given moment, 10% of users could be seeing blue banners on the site, 40-year-old males in the Midwest could be seeing red, while childfree ladies could be seeing green. They then sit and watch which banners get the most clicks … or which personality profile combinations attract the most subscribers and the most repeat subscribers.

Using massive multi-layered social experiments on its users, eHarmony maximizes its revenues. With this revenue they can pay for these for-show labs and studies. Perfect.

But I digress. Today’s news’s takeaway is from a press release from Match.com: (WARNING: Buzzword Overload Incoming)

“Singlesnet has built a heavily trafficked site with an active and dedicated community of users. While Singlesnet’s traffic is currently in decline, we believe that by applying our category expertise we can reverse that trend, increase the site’s profitability and improve the overall user experience. This is more of a value acquisition than a strategic one, and Singlesnet will predominantly be run as a standalone business. Nonetheless, the addition of the site’s considerable traffic to our existing aggregation of traffic in this single category should open new monetization opportunities for Match.com’s collective portfolio of domestic online dating brands.” –Greg Blatt, CEO of Match.com

As I’m writing this, NO ONE in the SinglesNet Forums cares. Go figure this out.

Related news articles and commentary

• David Evans’ take and ponderables on the acquisition..
• Associated Press
• Joseph Tartakoff
• Chris Caceres, VatorNews
• Leena Rao of TechCrunch was the first to get a hint last week of the acquisition.

If SinglesNet membership/traffic becomes Match.com membership/traffic (we don’t know how or if Match will do this), then all the big sites’ marketing plans and success metrics will be ruined.

If you attempted to use the eharmony.com website to be matched with an individual of the same sex but were denied the opportunity to do so at any time between May 31, 2004 and January 25, 2010, and were a resident of California at the time of your attempt, you may be a member of the Settlement Class entitled to make a claim from the Claim Fund.

See http://www.queerty.com/youve-got-4-weeks-to-claim-eharmony-didnt-let-you-hunt-for-same-sex-matches-and-win-free-money-20100225/ , dated 25 February 2009.

IMPORTANT: You must register today and finish the questionnaire today, February 24, 2010.

Everybody, this is just for today. I don’t think there’s an occasion and I don’t think eHarmony has done this thing before.

Here are my observations having used it for a few weeks. I would also encourage anyone interested in trying Chemistry.com to look over the information that Gary Stock published in addition to what I’ve written here.  Between the two, I think you will decide your time and money are better invested elsewhere.

The short story:

Chemistry.com fell short of my expectations in so many ways.  Here are the reasons why…

The only one good point (well, sort-of…):

Unlike eHarmony, they show you photos of your matches along with their profiles as a non-subscriber. However, this is provided you see their profile before they do. If a match “shows interest in you”, you get a big “subscription plan” page (because they think they “have you” because a “live” person is actually interested) and you can’t see their photo.  Are you kidding me?  You are trying to convert me to a subscriber and you take away their profile?

Major issues (or in one word, FAIL):

I signed up for an account on there probably two years ago to see what it was about and to take the personality test. My first order of business was to call their customer service to ask to re-take the personality test since it had been so long ago, as I noticed a significant difference in my matches when I did so with eHarmony.

You can not retake the test.  Their site was not designed for it. You would have to create a new account to do this.  This was not feasible in my case, since the subscription was linked to that specific account.

If you want to suspend matching (i.e. waiting between their free weekends, which they do every six weeks), you have to “archive” ALL your current matches (archive = close them).

You only get a maximum of five matches per day. If you review all five, you can click a link to try and find five more, so a maximum of ten if there are enough matches.

Traffic there is pretty abysmal. As a subscriber, I got the maximum number of matches in the first week and then it drastically tapered off. I didn’t get any matches towards the end of the month.  Their matching database is obviously much smaller than eHarmony’s (see traffic rankings) and the “we have too many women” scheme they kept e-mailing me about it was not very truthful.

Communication statistics are abysmal. Most matches did not respond.  Very few closed me out.  Even with a free communication weekend, there was essentially no communication by matches. I got a few to the e-mail stage but they turned non-responsive after a few messages and requests to meet in person.  I had been doing their free weekends for several months I did not even get one match to open communication and I don’t really even recall but a handful that responded.

Customer service is not anything special. They have links on the website to contact them but the automated responses (or form letters that customer service representatives send) are just as bad as eHarmony or Match. The so-called “elite concierge” service that was touted doesn’t seem to be any different or helpful than the operators I got at Match.com. In fact, I’m willing to bet they are housed in the same phone bank. At least, they do make their phone number easily accessible from the website (unlike eHarmony).

In the end, I went out on one date from Chemistry.  I recently found out that we had also been matched on eHarmony (during the Dec-Jan FCW and I couldn’t see photos) and she closed me out for must haves and can’t stands.  So, in terms of providing a good screening mechanism for a long-term partner, it seems that they fail there, too, if you use eHarmony as a benchmark.  The fluffy questions they use in the communication process seems to encourage meeting instead of screening folks out, so I’m not sure overall, how much better it is than Match.com.

Less critical issues:

Initiating communication is a two step process. First, you “show interest” and then you send a first set of criteria (sliders that show your preferences for several important relationship attributes). This is annoying because you have to do two things and if you are interested, why on earth wouldn’t you just go ahead and send the first stage criteria?  Extra mouse-clicks and it is cumbersome.

If a match shows interest in you, it seems as if you only the have choice of showing interest back on the first day. Why is this a problem? Well, you either show interest, or you can’t clear them off your plate and try to get five more matches. If you aren’t interested, you have to show interest in them to “clear them” to try and find more matches.

Their user interface provides a nudge link right beside each match which is nice compared to eHarmony. However, on page #2 of matches and beyond, it automatically reloads page #1, which is really dumb (sent e-mail to their tech support about this “bug”). I was able to get around this by loading each of those links in another tab. So, it is a few less clicks than eHarmony but still cumbersome.

They have an additional feature, the “first meeting request”, which I think is pretty pointless. In the past, apparently it suggested a location near the two of you to meet (heavily biased towards Starbucks) but it has been replaced by what is essentially an e-mail form with fields for you to enter a date, location (with a link to a search engine) and message to send what looks like a fancy “greeting card”. Very lame.

All your messages get lumped into a single e-mail inbox, so seeing all prior correspondence with a match is not easy like on eHarmony.

Matches don’t always have a delivered date viewable, so it was a pain to track them in a spreadsheet to determine match statistics for the site. A match has to be “closed” in order to see when they were delivered or any of the dates. This is especially a problem with matches that suddenly became “unavailable” and you couldn’t even get to their profile to get the date they were delivered (probably closed their accounts or suspended matching). At least eHarmony leaves that info on the match list so I could account for them in my spreadsheet…

In the end…

I could go on and on about all the other deficiencies.  I think that ultimately, the software features of Chemistry will end up being merged with Match.com (already have started to see some of that) because of having such a low subscriber population.  Sure, they may make more money per capita on Chemistry but my guess is that it is not doing anywhere near the business they hoped it to.

by Slow Children Crossing

eHarmony wasted a hour of my time and I will never join their site. Perhaps if it took two minutes to build a basic profile, I might think different.

BAD MARKETING IDEA!

• Close to $250 million in revenues in 2009
• Double digit registration growth in 2009
• Profitable since 2004
• eHarmony is currently focused on building itself as an independent business.

“eHarmony doesn’t disclose its user numbers, but Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster estimates that its revenues were about $250 million with about 13 percent market share.” — Julia Boorstin

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/25205881/eHarmony-and-Matchcom-Usability-Study, posted 11 February 2010.

via the WSJ Blog, 12 February 2010

eHarmony hit the first billion milestone on September 22, 2008. 507 days = 1.97 million matches per day.

To those who are annoyed at the barrage of eHarmony TV commercials and who wonder how many people fall for them, we’re going to tell you. February is known as the busiest month for eHarmony, and February 11 to 15, 2010, a five-day “free communication weekend” event, is predictably their busiest weekend of the year. It’s easy to track how many user accounts were created during the five days.

We registered on February 11 12:00AM PST and took note of our “user ID #“. Here’s the screenshot

We’ll return to the site on February 15 11:59PM PST, register again and subtract user ID numbers. Let’s see what happens.

Enjoy the FCW, everybody!

I am really not sure what to think about it…

The first thing that comes to mind:
Do they market the equivalent magazine for women if your account gender is a female? Are they taking into account if you are seeking homosexual matching?

Is intentional and part of the reality of the Match.com community or does their staff just not have a clue and just a random pick that their magazine cross-marketing comes up with?

In any event, I would hope that they had some kind of thought about the repercussions…

Summary:
1. 7 days free: February 5-11
2. 4 days free: February 12-15 (free communication weekend)
3. 28 days free: February 16-March 15 (to those who qualify)

Interesting (desperate?) way to get things going and raise site traffic. I hope it works.

UPDATE: “Advance Notice” emails say that US, Canada, Australia and Compatible Partners will have their FCW from Thursday to Monday, February 11-15.

Get ready to turn your matching on (or off, depending on how you look forward to these things).

Tip: FCW participants cannot initiate, accept or reject FastTrack (aka “Skip to Email”), so don’t initiate FastTrack with them this weekend or communication would be stuck.

The trial would have started on 1 February 2010.

Almost no changes will be made to the existing Compatible Partners service. (Read our review of eHarmony’s compliance to a previous New Jersey settlement.)

Two million dollars is a drop in the bucket compared to the $93 million that eHarmony spent on advertising during nine months of 2008. eHarmony’s press release also noted that the class action participants will altogether receive only $500,000. It’s loose change.

Congratulations goes to eHarmony on this legal victory.