European VC Index Ventures has pumped €15 Million into dating site Be2. The test is mainly based on the “New York Longitudinal Study†about the five factor model of personality development and Sternberg “triangular theory of love.†I took the test. Seemed very basic in nature. Personality testing aficionados, what do you think about it?
The user demographic of be2 is also slightly older, compared to other dating sites, with an age range of 25 – 69 years and a majority of users aged 30 – 49 years. Not a demographic well served by most dating sites. Perhaps as a results of this focus it now has 12 million members in 34 countries and was cash flow positive 6 weeks after a launch, despite having 225 employees.
Pricing:
- $1.00 per month as part of a special offer.
- 3 Months at $64.99 per month.
- 6 months for $38.99 per month.
There is something fishy here, between the number of employees, members and finance situation, things don’t add up.
No related posts.
{ 36 comments… read them below or add one }
I had detected some fraudulent lovestories since last May 2008. And they are still fraudulent!!!
Nearly the same story in different countries.
- Argentinean site says
Silvia from Cádiz and Juanjo from Girona
http://www.be2.com.ar/guest/lovestories.jsp?page=lovestory&storyid=91
Cádiz, Girona and Jerez are in Spain
- Chilean site says
Silvia from Cádiz and Juanjo from Girona
http://www.be2.cl/guest/lovestories.jsp?page=lovestory&storyid=96
Cádiz, Girona and Jerez are in Spain
- Mexican site says
Silvia from Cuernavaca and Juanjo from Acapulco
http://www.be2.com.mx/guest/lovestories.jsp?page=lovestory&storyid=66
——————————————————————–
- Italian site
http://www.be2.it/guest/lovestories.jsp?page=lovestories
Luciana, 31 anni, consulente finanziaria, e Sebastiano, 35 anni, architetto
Manuela, 34 anni, giornalista e Max, 36 anni, consulente in proprio
Tina, 33 anni, designer e Christian, 38 anni, commercante di vini
- Portuguese site
http://www.be2.pt/guest/lovestories.jsp?page=lovestories
Carolina, 31 anos, consultora financeira e Sebastião, 35 anos, arquitecto.
Marta, 34 anos, jornalista e SÃlvio, 36 anos, consultor.
Tina, 33 anos, designer e Christian, 38 anos, comerciante de vinhos
——————————————————————–
- Brazilian site
http://www.be2.com.br/guest/lovestories.jsp?page=lovestory&storyid=57
- Argentinean site
http://www.be2.com.ar/guest/lovestories.jsp?page=lovestory&storyid=90
——————————————————————–
- Colombian site
http://www.co.be2.com/guest/lovestories.jsp?page=lovestory&storyid=445
- Spanish site
http://www.be2.es/guest/lovestories.jsp?page=lovestory&storyid=205
——————————————————————–
- Colombian site
http://www.co.be2.com/guest/lovestories.jsp?page=lovestory&storyid=442
- French site
http://www.be2.fr/guest/lovestories.jsp?page=lovestory&storyid=279
——————————————————————–
and many more!
Does Be 2 think persons are stupid?
Be2:
Fee is USD 240 per year.
Be2 uses a Pseudo Normative Personality Test in different languages.
http://img518.imageshack.us/my.php?image=be2scshotxw1.jpg
Results are points in bars and compatibility is expressed with a “be2 Index”, a 3 integer figure, like 105, 67, 92, etc. It resembles WeAttract’s tests and results.
http://img248.imageshack.us/my.php?image=be2resultsyq4.jpg
As Parship, Ulteem, Corazona and others, reverse engineer (whith dummy profiles of men and women I had invented and used as tests points) clearly shows the whole precision of Be2′s matchmaking process is less than any person could had achieved searching by his/her own!!!
As Parship, Ulteem and others, there is not any Scientific Paper PEER REVIEWED that substantiate “be2 is the professional, scientifically based personal introduction service for creating lasting relationships.”
http://www.be2.com/tourpage/page1
http://www.be2.com.au/tourpage/page1
“be2 is trusted by millions of people on 5 continents”
http://www.be2.com/tourpage/page1
“be2 is trusted by millions of people on 6 continents”
8.161.973 registered members! 13 May 2008
7.951.773 registered members! 02 May 2008
http://img528.imageshack.us/my.php?image=be2scshot02mayka6.jpg
Diff: 210.200 nearly 19.100 new users per day? Seems as inflating.
12.319.994 registered members! 12 Nov 2008
12.319.994 – 7.951.773 == 4.368.221
4.368.221 / 164 days nearly 26.635 new users per day?
How many of them are subscribers?
How a prospective client could differentiate Be2 from Ulteem and Be2 from Parship? They all three have a whole precision of their matchmaking algorithms less than any person could had achieved searching by his/her own!!!
Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
from Buenos Aires. Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
I had detected some fraudulent lovestories since last May 2008. And they are still fraudulent!!!
Nearly the same story in different countries.
- Argentinean site says
Silvia from Cádiz and Juanjo from Girona
lovestory id=91
Cádiz, Girona and Jerez are in Spain
- Chilean site says
Silvia from Cádiz and Juanjo from Girona
lovestory id=96
Cádiz, Girona and Jerez are in Spain
- Mexican site says
Silvia from Cuernavaca and Juanjo from Acapulco
lovestory id=66
——————————————————————–
- Italian site
Luciana, 31 anni, consulente finanziaria, e Sebastiano, 35 anni, architetto
Manuela, 34 anni, giornalista e Max, 36 anni, consulente in proprio
Tina, 33 anni, designer e Christian, 38 anni, commercante di vini
- Portuguese site
Carolina, 31 anos, consultora financeira e Sebastião, 35 anos, arquitecto.
Marta, 34 anos, jornalista e SÃlvio, 36 anos, consultor.
Tina, 33 anos, designer e Christian, 38 anos, comerciante de vinhos
——————————————————————–
- Brazilian site
lovestory id=57
- Argentinean site
lovestory id=90
——————————————————————–
- Colombian site
lovestory id=445
- Spanish site
lovestory id=205
——————————————————————–
- Colombian site
lovestory id=442
- French site
lovestory id=279
——————————————————————–
and many more!
Be2:
Fee is USD 240 per year.
Be2 uses a Pseudo Normative Personality Test in different languages.
http://img518.imageshack.us/my.php?image=be2scshotxw1.jpg
Results are points in bars and compatibility is expressed with a “be2 Index”, a 3 integer figure, like 105, 67, 92, etc. It resembles WeAttract’s tests and results.
http://img248.imageshack.us/my.php?image=be2resultsyq4.jpg
As Parship, Ulteem, Corazona and others, reverse engineer (whith dummy profiles of men and women I had invented and used as tests points) clearly shows the whole precision of Be2′s matchmaking process is less than any person could had achieved searching by his/her own!!!
As Parship, Ulteem and others, there is not any Scientific Paper PEER REVIEWED that substantiate “be2 is the professional, scientifically based personal introduction service for creating lasting relationships.”
Australian Site
“be2 is trusted by millions of people on 5 continents”
Main site
“be2 is trusted by millions of people on 6 continents”
8.161.973 registered members! 13 May 2008
7.951.773 registered members! 02 May 2008
http://img528.imageshack.us/my.php?image=be2scshot02mayka6.jpg
Diff: 210.200 nearly 19.100 new users per day? Seems as inflating.
12.319.994 registered members! 12 Nov 2008
12.319.994 – 7.951.773 == 4.368.221
4.368.221 / 164 days nearly 26.635 new users per day?
How many of them are subscribers?
How a prospective client could differentiate Be2 from Ulteem and Be2 from Parship? They all three have a whole precision of their matchmaking algorithms less than any person could had achieved searching by his/her own!!!
Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
Hi Dave,
There seems to be nothing particularly special, innovative or effective about this approach. Sternberg’s model is well respected, but it seems infeasible to match strangers on its components since Sternberg’s model describes drives/processes that are at play in existing relationships. Thus, it’s more a model for relationship maintenance than initial compatibility per se.
Matching people strictly on personality is ineffective/misguided since there are no predictable patterns in this respect. Reviews of research show that couples show little to no similarity in their over all personality structures. Thus, there can be diverse patterns in personality between two people and yet a relationship can still thrive.
Thanks,
James Houran, Ph.D.
http://www.OnlineDatingMagazine.com
Why do you think that there is something “fishy” about the figures of employees, members and finance situation? “Things do not add up” is not an argument, it’s only an opinion.
So could you specify a little bit what your really wanted to telly our readers? and do you really think you can compare be2 with OKCupid?
sehpferd
fromGgermany
Sehpherd, I’m not sure why you’re reacting to my post so negatively. You obviously work or know Be2, what can you tell us about the company?
A dating site with 225 employees that’s cash flow positive 6 weeks after a launch is troubling. If that doesn’t bother you, you don’t know the industry well enough.
I mentioned the funding because I found it remarkable on many fronts. That’s all I wanted to say in the post.
I will argue the issues when I know more about the company. Happy to hear your side of the story.
I compared them because OkCupid raised $6 million to start the site and they have around 600k monthly visitors. Merely trying to see how funds raised correlates to visitor traffic over time.
Dave Be2 Owns the non english markets, especially spanish.
This site isn’t a startup but probably the third or 4th biggest paid dating site in the world.
Wow… cash flow positive after just 6 weeks. We at Dating Revolution will make it to cash flow positive, but it’ll certainly take more than a few weeks.
If they could actually grow that fast, they’d own the world.
Markus, yes, seems like some of the TechCrunch data was off, including the original link, which was to be2.net, a tiny site.
What do you mean they own non-english markets? Are there stats to back that up? I hear they want to go after Meetic, but really, is that even possible at this time?
10 million is about a Month of Match marketing dollars, is that really going to make a dent?
I’ll admit, some of these “large” multinational sites make it under my radar, amazing what’s happening in other countries and how little is known about them. Try to Google Be2, practically nothing show up.
Dave,
When you compare the Compete stats of one site vs. another they are likely counting US traffic only. Since Be2 is new in the US their stats are reporting very small compared to okCupid.
I know that Comscore reports US traffic seperate from their other reports which you can get by subscribing to their metrix from International markets.
According to their press release they launched in 2004 so the company is not new. I am inpressed by how many languages Be2 is translated into, I also think that the design is very nice.
But like you I am surprised by the fact that they have 225 employees. I’d be interested to hear what all of these employees do.
They also claim to be signing up 20,000 members a day. I’m curious how this traffic breaks down between all of their markets.
Why don’t you see if they will do an interview with you. Very few people in the US are familiar with them, it would be good PR…
Hi Dave; if you are going to interview Dr. Robert Wuttke, the founder of be2
please ask him about:
- Be2 service under fraud investigation in Mexico and Spain, seems they have some denounces in consumer associations. [You can use Google/Yahoo and search: Be2 + fraude]
- Who are the brains behind its personality test? Who validated it and how? If Be2 is going to publish a Scientific Paper to substantiate its matching method.
- How many of Be2 12.500.000 members are paying subscribers? and how many are scammers?
- How a prospective client could differentiate Be2 from Ulteem(Meetic), Parship or iLove?
They offer nearly the same, a Pseudo Normative Personality Test in different languages and low precision in their matchmaking process.
- Why Be2 post fraudulent lovestories?
Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
I guess I was the only one missing in all these comments. Yes, there was a mix-up between be2.com and be2.net yesterday and I got a 'ton' of phone calls from web sites offering me advertising space. They had all read about the VC injection. I told them that I wish I had 15 mil to work with. It's nice that techcrunch had it fixed yesterday. Robert, I wish you all the best. We are all starting from either a garage or a basement :-)
Sincerely,
Hi Dave,
we started be2 with 2 people in the garage, put our website life in Germany, and where indeed cash flow positive within 6 weeks.
Already 3 months later we launched the first international markets (Spain and Italy) and continued to grow out of our free cash flow.
Only during 2007, we decided to take on first external funding to accelerate our growth.
Now, 4.5 years (not 6 weeks) later we are 225 people working for be2, covering 34 countries on 6 continents.
We typically add between 15-25,000 new members every day, bringing the total number to over 12 million members worldwide now.
A look into ComScore, NielsenNetratings, even Alexa would show that the numbers do add up and should not be fishy. Of course be2 has also 34 different domains to better serve our local markets, so any query on alexa has to be done domain by domain (be2.com only shows what we are currently testing in the US market).
Hope this additional information helps
robert (be2)
Meir, yes you are correct about the traffic measurement issues, always off, always to be taken with a grain of salt.
How to get international traffic stats without paying Comscore? (way too expensive.)
Robert, thanks for the clarification. I just emailed you about an interview, hope you will agree to talk, I’m sure readers of this blog are eager to hear about your company and perspectives on the global dating market.
Be2.com make me sick. I dont know how they are getting away with ripping people off. Basically they tell you you can cancel any membership as long as its 14 days before renewal time, but then they do not answer your emails personally, only with a standard letter . This informs you that you must fax your wish to terminate an you will recieve a code which you then fax to a different number, surprise,surprise the fax does’nt connect an I’ve read other peoples similar experiences.(see http://www.complaintsboard.com) They make it impossible to cancel or have proper contact and then they raid your bank account.
I have sent numerous emails informing them I wish to cancel, with no personal reply, sickening, such a scam.
Dr Robert Wuttke seems a sucessful, respected buissnessman, I wonder if he’s aware of the way in which the company are financially conning the public?
Why dont you clean up your act be2.com and stop raiding peoples bank accounts.
Lately, I have been getting many phone calls from unhappy Be2.com subscribers. For some reason they keep calling Be2.net, asking me to cancel their subscriptsions and refund their cash. I would suggest that Be2.com places their full name on the charges with the ‘.com’ extension. I don’t want to be in the middle of an ongoing battle.
I was curious about what they charged for a monthly membership … I took three emails to the company … finally when I said I wasn’t going to create an account just to find out what it was going to cost, they emailed me the info.
“Our most popular membership, the 6-month premium membership costs $233.94. Or use all of be2s services with our smallest package: 3 months for just $194.97!”
Yikes !!! That’s pretty expensive for a run of the mill dating site. I wonder if they just charge in Euros, and that’s gotten expensive due to the strength of the Euro compared to the dollar.
I have had a similar problem with Parship.com. they have taken 114 pounds from my account now in two separate recurring visa transactions. I have tried cancelling the subscription and that obviously didn’t work. I have tried contacting them but I got no reply. They make things so difficult. Does anyone have any advice on how I can get my money back. I have only logged on once in November just to try and get their contact details.
I registered with be2.com a few weeks ago just to take their test (while following Austrailian Open results on the internet where they were advertising). A couple of days ago I received an email directly to my personal email account – not through be2.com – purportedly from a woman in the former Soviet Union (exact country not specified). I also had someone attempt to log-in to my personal email account last week, an attempt that I suspect was perpetrated by the same person(s). Clearly someone has either hacked into their system or someone inside be2 has given out private information. There is a Russian version of be2, and I suspect that someone involved in part of their business is the source of the problem.
I immediately reported this breach of security to be2 through the customer service link on their website, and sent another message the next day. Still have no response from them.
jcm, I am the owner of the supposedly russian version be2.NET, which is by the way not Russian at all, and I have nothing to do with the way be2.COM does their business. Had I hacked into their database, my customer database would’ve been in the millions. I myself do try to keep my site clean of scammers and have waged battles for years against them. Think where you might’ve given out your email address before posting comments such as these! I am trying to do real business and this type of comment is not accepted. I have had thousands of customers writing me about returning their money, thinking they are writing be2.COM. I do realize our names are similar, but we are two very different companies. By the way, I am located in the US, but my background is Bulgarian, hence the many ‘Bulgarians’ on the site, not Russians
Nick,
First, I should note that I DID hear back from be2.com’s customer service department overnight, and they apparently are investigating what happened. There is no way that the person who sent me the message got my information from anywhere other than be2.com.
Second, I had picked up from the above posts that there is a difference between be2.COM and be2.NET, the latter being your company. To be clear for everyone, my problem was with the former, be2.COM.
Third, there is a be2.RU website, which other than being in Russian, looks identical to the be2.COM website. I presume that is related to be2.com rather than be2.net?
Sorry for any confusion or consternation caused by my previous post.
Thank you for the clarification.
just share my story
Sean, read your blog post. You, along with many people, fail to read the terms when you sign up. The Terms link right off the home page clearly states:
By providing be2 with payment information, you authorize and instruct be2 to bill your credit or debit card account for the amount of the fee payable for the Services you ordered, and to bill your account again prior to the expiration of the current term of the subscription for these Services,
You didn’t read the fine print. I’m not saying the billing situation with dating sites couldn’t use a major overhaul, but complaining because you didn’t read a web page close enough is not a great excuse.
Well, I’ve managed to cancel online. Still, I’m petrified of the perspective that Be2.se (Sweden) will try to bill me or sue me when my current membership will expire. I gather, I should cancel my credit card. Any insights?
Lena, I don’t think you need to cancel your credit card, but keep a watchful eye on it. If they bill you despite the fact that you had cancelled your membership, then I would say this is a very unfair way of conducting business. As David Evans stated above, whenever dealing with paid services, you DO have to read the fine print.
Lena, you are being paranoid. You canceled your account. Why would they sue you and why in the world would you cancel your credit card? Do you not understand how credit cards work?
I have a small point here…
They block the emails for years, then having popups in my email account
promoting “b2 love”, so i have to “find” someone and pay for it, and
then they block the communication between “us”. What is this fraud?
http://corfu.t35.com/rebuild.htm
I got intressted in the equation of low security, automatic news generators, automatical tradingsystems, backdoors and remote access, the whole equation
smells…
Yours sincerely
Jan kajander
corfu.t35.com
I’ve cancelled online, and have got an e-mail confirmation that automatic subscription renewal has been stopped,.. and they still keep billing, and of course they ignore any complaints on this subject.
This is straightforward CREDIT CARD FRAUD, and the company commits it on regular basis.
BE2 must be BLACKLISTED so everybody will see FRAUD WARNING in their browsers on all be2 sites.
Let alone that their “search results” are actually just a RANDOM selection ,filtered a little bit to throw away most “incompatible” surveys, this is obvious because average Kbe2 rating does not rise when you choose a wider search range, you can see surveys with high Kbe2 disappear and with lower Kbe2 appear, and you cannot narrow the search range enough to ensure that they do not hide anything.
So any free site with a REAL search through the whole database shows better results if you can narrow the search enough on that site.
So there is FALSE ADVERTISING as well – BE2 does NOT find “compatible” partners for you, they just want you to spend more time on the site so you pay more money.
But now they can probably just BUY anything and anybody, and any black list and any court.
Dear Sergey,
I´m Michaela from be2 and just read your comment. I´m sorry you experienced problems with your cancellation process. We take such feedback very seriously as we are constantly looking for ways to improve our service for our members.
Unfortunately from the information you provided, I cannot look at your case in more detail. Please share your username and service ID (stated in each letter you receive from our customer service, otherwise the email address that you used for registering with be2) with us on the following feedback email address: opinion@be2.com. You will receive an immediate reply and we will try to solve your issues together with you.
Best wishes,
Michaela
Well, I suspect that ic3.gov can handle this issue a little bit better.
There is a clear evidence of mis-information and self-contradictory information, on the site (screenshots and tcpdump logs are quite easy to record) and in e-mail notifications, leading to, well, users (several millions of users?) being a little bit (average $100/user?) , well, overcharged.
That, AFAIK, constitutes a FRAUD, which is, AFAIK, Swiss Criminal Code art.146.
Be2 perfectly knows which accounts have canceled their subscriptions.
So either this is resolved for ALL the users, or….. the trick of fixing this only for those who care enough to complain (how much is that? 1%? 0.1%? how much will just not notice that $100 per 6 months among other things?) so that trick will not do this time.
I had reported this via the form on the site in my country. Twice. They did absolutely nothing.
Well , you see, that as be2 people read this – they do not go dig and fix their database. For YEARS, people from different countries complain, and nothing is done.
Well, who can believe that one cannot fix a “simple technical error on the site” for $1Billion and 1 year??
Who can beleive that while they can handle censoring all the messages (1 per free user per day?) there is no one to properly handle a cancellation request (1 per vip-user per year?)
Why would a SHOP ever want to HIDE THE PRICE TAGS? Can you see them while subscribed? Can you see them on the site while not logged in? Now guess why. This violates at least Russian antitrust laws (selling the same product at the same time for different prices to different customers). I do not know exactly about Swiss law on this issue.
Why are you censored on this site if you just write “I want to quit this site” in your profile??
People, think about it. They don’t want you to ever quit a DATING AGENCY.
Why would one ever need to do that? Well, if you want to quit – you just hit that quit button, right? ha-ha, WRONG.
I always thought that Switzerland was quite far away from Nigeria…gotta dig out that world map..)))
Such abuse of trust, as well as the law, is intolerable. This has gone way too far. Be2 is free to hate its foreign users as much as it likes, and consider them no more than their Swiss bank account fodder, but respect the freakin’ LAW at least… (sorry, I forgot.. it’s crisis time.. and laws can also be bought and sold.. RIAA did it, who’s the next??)
enough talk..
Well, now I must say that my account IS fixed. Thanks.
but.. be2.COM is not the whole be2 Gmbh.. and in some countries VERY strange things happen.. starting from self-contradictory Agreement..
So there is plenty of room to improve the service;)
Sergey
There is no room to improve the service because it started as a scam, same as Maddoff, Stanford and thousand of other white collar thieves. And it will remain as a scam but improving it with all the digital disguise. It is just a matter of time before these people go to justice. If you steal a dollar from ten people is ten dollars, but if you steal 1 dollar from 20 million people is twenty million dollars. Get it?? The question is: How many more million dollars will be stolen during the next coming years, before this fraudelent service in intervened by the authorities? Will the victims ever recover their money?
Wow…nice round!! That should go a long way in growing this great service!!
Chat with singles in your city
Do not join Be2 whatever you do. It is a complete scam and rip off. Once you have joined you cannot leave no matter how many emails you send or what ever faxes you send you can’t leave! And they continue taking money from your bank account. It is an injustice that this company is still causing pain to thousands of people around the world.
Yes, Jason I absolutely agree. I joined only 10 days ago and am horrified at the experience I’ve had with Be2. What on earth needs to be done to stop this company. It’s disgraceful to read the many, many warnings from the people who joined this site only to have extensive trouble getting out of it and also retrieving any payment made once they realised almost immediately that things weren’t right and even after every effort was made to cancel memberships and automatic payment renewals. I only wish I’d done more research online, as I never would have joined this dating site if I’d known what I would see once I’d paid my money for the 6 months membership. No wonder we can’t see photos etc before we pay! So many scam profiles! No one would pay good hard earned money to be exposed to scams! And what happens to our information and photos once we’ve given them that information? I hate to think! I wonder if the photo used by a fake profile, claiming to be a man called ‘Gregory Petterson’ was once an innocent member of this, or another dating site. I googled the name as well as Be2 scams and very soon discovered many, many disgruntled and angry people who feel victimised by their experience.