And so begins my mission to get out of my elove membership (legally).
Well, as you may recall, I signed a contract binding me to elove's services against my better judgment. What was I thinking? Why didn't I listen to instinct, the little voice telling me something is up? I agreed to a $2000 plan which I would pay off over two years. This included 12 referrals (dates). My first (and so far only) referral called me the week of Cinco de Mayo before I got his info. We went on a mediocre date that weekend and I gave my feedback immediately. I have heard NOTHING from elove. Not a thing.
I also have been googling "elove scams" and continue to find complaints and info on their shady practices. One particularly interesting page was The Right One Blows Chunks. The Right One is (one of) their former aliases. I basically had all the same "warning signs" he had, which now leads me to believe that my interviewee was totally feeding me scripted, practiced lines. I also read a story where a woman said TRO hired someone to go on a date with her. Yes, they hire stooges (or at least her branch did)!
Given that, I did a google search and facebook search on my old referral wondering if he was a stooge too. He's not on any social networking site, but I found out that his first name given on the referral sheet was a diminutive. Entering his full name, still no social networks, but now I know he worked at ----Bank in 2008 and gave money to the Obama campaign. I called his number again and it's still him (his voice mail answered, I didn't leave a message). Perhaps he was an actual member and not a stooge, but now I'm skeptical.
Before I give them any more of my money, I decided to try and cancel today.
I called membership services saying I wanted to cancel because I was dissatisfied with the service. Shouldn't have said my reason for calling. Of course, my local matchmaker (or whoever she is), Shay, was "on another call." So I left my name and number and was told she would call back. Three hours later, I called back saying I wanted to cancel because I'm not pleased with the service, that I hadn't had a referral since the first one, and that I wanted no more money withdrawn from my bank account. She said even if I cancelled the membership, I would still have to pay. If I didn't cancel within the 3 days after I signed, I'm obligated to pay. Even if I get married. She constantly answered, "No," as in no I can't get out of it.
But coincidentally enough, she was working on a referral for me today and was just waiting on him to call back before sending it to me. Uh huh. I had to call them to get them looking for a referral (or stooge) for me. She said sometimes things are slow over summer because people are on vacation and that sometimes it takes awhile to match people based on the criteria given. I said that I told Kimberly that it was okay if they were lenient on some criteria to get me "out there" and dating. The criteria I gave was already pretty open to begin with! She asked if it was necessary for the man to never have been married and I said that "Divorced is fine," though I honestly don't want anyone with an ex-wife, especially when they are so young. The only non-negotiable was that he can't want or have kids. So I had to loosen up the criteria though I am the one paying the $2000.
I am determined, though, to find some way out of this. I'm tempted to file a complaint to the BBB and just tell the bank to have the payments stopped. The two things I'm wondering about is there's a portion of the contract missing and the business address given does not show up on any google search. I'm trying to see if either makes the contract null and void.
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