Good luck with your background checks. At least RelyID is simply verifying that the person is who they say they are. That’s enough for me, but even that might be going a bit too off the deep end.

Traveling and laptop issues on this end — I did respond to “E” directly but, wanted to provide you with the details:

Do I lose my RelyID badge in eHarmony if I move or change my address on (A) eHarmony’s Account Settings screen (i.e., my credit card billing address), (B) eHarmony’s Match Settings screen (where I enter the city/state that my matches see), or (C) change my zip code (where I instruct eHarmony as the central point to do its proximity searches)? If so, can I reverify without additional charges? (This is a four-part question.)

Your RelyID verified city of residence shows up next to your profile name (the one that your matches see). This is separate from your billing address or even the address in which you have eHarmony look for matches for you. So your matches will always see that you are verified as living in another city if you choose to get matched with people in a different region. If you decide to move and want to change your verified address, you will need to call customer care to manually change that display address. When you do so, that turns off RelyID and you need to get verified again. You have to pay for this re-verification since $5.95 only pays for your 2 online verification tests (most people pass after only one time).

If you cannot verify me (i.e., you found no record of me to ask me questions about), what happens? Do I get a refund?

The RelyID testing process utilizes many national data sources, which encompass hundreds of millions of records on US adults that are updated daily in many cases. In the event that our automated service is unable to locate you, we do enable customers to manually validate themselves with a customer care agent. This manual validation process requires you to once again pass a series of challenge questions but will also require you to submit personal identification, which can include an official government issued ID.

Where is the RelyID privacy policy? Who gets access to any personal information I give you?

Any information submitted during the RelyID verification process falls first under eHarmony’s site-wide privacy policy, which can be found here, and is supplemented by the terms and conditions a user agrees to at the time he or she purchases RelyID. Next, during the testing process, you are connected to a secure server, which issues your personalized test questions. The questions are known/shown only to you and upon completion of the test, your answers are not stored nor are they shared with any 3rd parties either by eHarmony or RelyID.

Is it possible that a close friend impersonates me and gets verified through your service?

The RelyID testing process is a thorough, multi-step process that checks your information against a wide variety of national sources. The questions that it generates are customized exclusively for you, and unless your friend had been privy to all of your personal decisions over your lifetime, concerning residential, financial, and family, it would be near-impossible for someone to impersonate you.

Best,
Pat

Hello Pat:

I’m an eHarmony member considering your services and I have questions:

1. Do I lose my RelyID badge in eHarmony if I move or change my address on (A) eHarmony’s Account Settings screen (i.e., my credit card billing address), (B) eHarmony’s Match Settings screen (where I enter the city/state that my matches see), or (C) change my zip code (where I instruct eHarmony as the central point to do its proximity searches)? If so, can I reverify without additional charges? (This is a four-part question.)

2. If you cannot verify me (i.e., you found no record of me to ask me questions about), what happens? Do I get a refund?

3. Where is the RelyID privacy policy? Who gets access to any personal information I give you?

4. Is it possible that a close friend impersonates me and gets verified through your service?

As you can see, some questions also pertain whether I can rely at all on the relyID badges of the matches I receive in eHarmony.

Yours truly,

E