elove: the continuing saga

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I'm not pleased with the service, that I hadn't had a referral since the first one, and that I wanted no more money withdrawn from my bank account.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.

Matchmaking scam?

Uh oh.

OK, if you use eLove, definitely do not take price at face value. There is no reason to pay more than you have to for this.

I did some perusing online, which I should have done before going to the interview (lesson learned). I googled matchmaking scams as well as e Love. Many of the matchmaking scams are pretty obvious. Russian bride scams, scams from small mom and pop organizations, matchmaking services that cost upwards of $100,000.

In terms of eLove, it seems to be a mixed bag. They were one of the top three rated companies at the Internet Dating & Matchmaking Conference. Also, upon looking it up at bbb.org, it's listed as a Better Business Bureau accredited business under its old name, The Right One.

But upon looking up The Right One on Ripoff Report, it is not without complaints. Many of the complaints are a few years old, though, and only one is for the office in my state. I guess the fact that the company has changed it's name over the years is a cause of concern, but it has bought out other companies. So that might be the reason for the name changes, not because they had so many complaints and therefore were changing their business name to cover their ass.

When I read the complaints though, many expressed disappointment at the matches. One man said the women were ugly.

Now I understand that if you give negative feedback about a date and the company sends you another match with the same qualities, you should complain. The woman I spoke to told me to be picky so they could pinpoint what I want. So if they don't take my feedback into account, then yes they have violated the agreement. One person said the match had a criminal record which is definitely grounds for complaint because eLove claims to do background checks.

But complaining because they gave you "ugly" people? You just didn't like the matches? Well, that's a risk you take with any matchmaking service. They can't guarantee chemistry.

But the potential loss is greater with a traditional maker.

I'll be explicit: they're charging me about $2000, which I'm paying off over the course of 24 months. So it comes out to about $70 a month. Hey, there are matchmaking services that cost over $10,000 and they originally were going to charge me $5000 to join. When I told her what I could afford per month, she was able to knock off more than half the price. True, there's a chance that they won't find me anyone within their pool, but that's a risk I'm taking. So I can't really be mad at them if nothing comes of it, as long as they're doing everything they claimed they would do on their end.

The company has 1000's of members and a few dozen complaints (many of the older ones listed on bbb.org were resolved, by the way). Any company is going to make mistakes now and then, and it's clear that certain offices are more guilty than others. As I said, my office only had one complaint. I have to give the benefit of the doubt that the majority of members are satisfied. I also found a story where they took on people who were rejected by beautifulpeople.com. Also, Online Dating Insider visited in November and said nothing along the lines of the complaints on Ripoff Report.

So if it's ok'ed by the Better Business Bureau, if other people in the matchmaking biz are taking it seriously, I guess I can calm down. And anyway, if they try to take away more money from me past the 24 months, I have another checking account I can transfer all my money to so they can't get me (until I can get them out of my hair).

It's gotta be legit. But I'll keep a critical eye open.