1) Sites that force both people to be registered
members in order to communicate.
The majority
of big dating sites make you believe that if you sign
up, you can
communicate with anyone else on the site. What they
don't tell you is that the person you are trying
to communicate with must also pay to be a member
in order to communicate back with you! This process
is
extremely deceiving and unfair to the customer. Some
of the biggest offenders include eHarmony, Match,
Udate, and Kiss. But there are sites that do not
use such
deception, like LavaLife, American Singles, and Romantic
Planet.
2) Picture/Profile approvals take too long.
When a
person signs up for a dating service, he/she wants
to be able to immediately begin using that service.
Yet some dating sites take up to three days to approve
your photos! This type of service is unacceptable,
particularly when dating sites are amongst the biggest
money making ventures online. Sites we found to be
ultra quick in getting up pictures are Udate and Kiss,
which both had pictures up within 10 minutes of submitting
them. eHarmony appears to be generally quick too. Dating
sites must improve customer service to improve retention
and that
means
immediate
quick
approval
of images and profiles.
3) Status options are deceiving.
This annoyance
solely belongs to Udate and Kiss. When selecting your
status
for your Udate/Kiss profile, you don’t have the
option of just selecting "divorced" or "separated"
because Udate/Kiss have grouped "divorced/separated"
together even though these are two completely different
things!
Most people would go out with someone who is legally
divorced, but not someone who is only separated. We
know of some people who have marked "single" in
their Udate/Kiss profile even though they are divorced
because Udate/Kiss has yet to learn that there is a
big difference between being divorced and being separated!
4) Can’t disable instant messaging.
This
annoyance belongs solely to LavaLife. LavaLife has
an instant
messaging feature that you can’t disable. So
if you are an attractive female trying to update
your profile, you may find yourself constantly interrupted
by dozens of men trying to Instant Message you, bringing
up a window every time one calls. Most sites allow
you to disable the Instant Message feature, but not
LavaLife.
5) Inability to "suspend" your account.
When
you start dating someone you met online, it is proper
to suspend your dating account while
you see
where things lead. While many dating sites give you
the option to suspend or turn off your account, Udate
and Kiss force you to remove your profile altogether
(your account is deleted). So if you ever return, not
only do you have to fill out all the information again,
but you'll also discover that you can't get your old username
back because even though you deleted your account, the
username is still in their system!
6) Limit on how many characters you can use
in message.
Some sites limit the number of "characters"
you can use in a message you write to another member.
One
of the biggest offenders is American Singles that limits
you to 1,300 characters even though you’re paying
them a large monthly fee for the service! I once had
to split a return message to someone interested in
me in four different messages because of the annoying
character limitation. It's funny how a free service
like Yahoo Mail has no character limits on your email
messages, but if you pay some dating sites $29.99 a
month, they make sure you’re limited on how much
you can say to another member!
7) Sorry, no commas or apostrophes allowed!
Commas and apostrophes are a critical part
of writing. Yet if you are signed up for Udate or Kiss,
you'll quickly find that they do not allow you to use
commas (,) or apostrophes (')
in your profile message. Udate/Kiss
automatically
deletes commas and apostrophes from your profile message
without even telling you. That's why many messages
on the service look rather odd. If you say in your
profile: "My
favorite activities are bowling, miniature golf, surfing,
skiing, sailing, and traveling. And I can't stand
people who don't brush their teeth"; Udate/Kiss
lists it as follows: "My favorite activities
are bowling miniature golf surfing skiing sailing and
traveling. And I can t stand people who don t brush
their teeth."
8) Picture rejection.
A few sites are overzealous
in the review of pictures (which is likely why
it takes the service forever to approve pictures).
An example is MatchMaker, which will sometimes reject
a picture
of a person wearing sunglasses (even in a nice close-up
shot) for "not showing enough of the face" (because
the sunglasses block the eyes from being in view).
This type of pickiness is enough to drive people to
use other services.
9) HTML chatting.
HTML chatting (where the
window must refresh to show new messages) is very old
technology.
It is a technology that you'd think would be
so outdated that online dating sites would be scared
to use it. However, three large dating sites still
use HTML-type chatting as part of their format! Those
sites include Udate, Kiss, and FriendFinder.
10) Can’t login to account from home page.
If
you go to the home page of Udate, Kiss, or Matchmaker,
you'll discover that members can't log
onto the site from the home page. Udate/Kiss require
members to click a button from the home page in order
to log in, thus creating one extra step every time
you want to log in. Matchmaker makes you click twice
before you can log in!
Top 10 Annoyances of Online
Dating Services