I don’t often pick on specific dating sites that make it difficult to deal with billing issues but this reader’s story is one that I am hearing all to often these days, and not just about be2.com.
Lightly edited for length and clarity:
You are probably aware that be2.com are under scrutiny. I signed up with be2 for the 1 month free trial. Not really aware of the fact they automatically renew it to the tune of £149 a month later unless you contact them within two weeks of the payment going out.
When…i went on the site to try to cancel my account and basically couldn’t. The website takes you around in circles and it is impossible. I looked for contact information and it says on the website to cancel your membership you need to fax it in writing, but what a surprise, no fax number. Basically it is deliberately made impossible to contact them.
I again attempted to cancel my membership and hey presto, there is link to cancel my membership however with no refund. Obviously, once they have your money they allow the link.
I have had series of emails where i have tried to argue my case and again you are met with a blank wall of what seem like pre-generated emails. Not only that, the website is fake, two thirds of the profiles are fake, with a shoddy attempt at reality by blurring the photographs.
On further investigation i have found testimonies on the web of hundreds of victims of this scam including an article from the guardian.
On further investigation, the contact numbers for the company listed in the domain database checked via google, do not exist, i’ve tried them.
I suggest signing up for £5, and see what happens, i guarantee you will have exactly the same experience.
From a few minutes of Google searches it seems like this person is not near the only one having trouble with be2′s automatic billing process. The same could be said for a number of high-profile dating sites around the world.
Billing issues like this and the recent brouhaha around background checks have some attorney’s looking at the dating industry as their next big score, although none that I have spoken with have shown an Elliot Spitzer-like effort to call the industry to task. My advice? Clean up your act or the government will do it for you.
This is without doubt the number 1 complaint we’ve heard from daters about online dating and it drives us nuts! Credit cards are a very problematic way to pay for subscription because they give you so few cancellation rights.
There are ways around it and we’ve laid bare the ways to stay in control of re-billing at:
http://www.datingtrail.co.uk/dating_article.php/262-five_ways_to_avoid_headaches_with_online_dating_subscriptions.htm
Hope it helps! (and we also hope more dating firms clean on this stuff – it’s shambolic)
Terrible – this story is quite common unfortunately. Alas I don’t think the governments will get involved in this – there are more important things for them to be doing at present.
All our 5,000+ sites offer a free phone (toll-free) telephone number so members can call in, at no cost and speak to a member of customer care team, typically in less than a minute.
We took the decision about 18 months ago to invest heavily in this area and focus on a high quality user experience – for us, it’s working commercially, with year-on-year revenues up 90% announced recently (http://www.whitelabeldating.com/blog/2011/05/bank-holiday-success/).
I wish more companies would follow us as this would grow the dating category.
Ross
Are you surprised by this? Most online dating sites paid or free are full of fake profiles. When you hear of sites indicating that they have millions of users, this is BS…
From my experience running a free dating site, most of our registrations (upwards of 80% are spammers, scammers). They use compromised computers and proxy servers to register. Fortunantly, we manually approve all profiles before they can communicate with any legitimate member.
Hi David,
Why did you delete my comment?
So cheating is very bad – for it should be punished. Come and see us, the site of young, free registration and search partner compatibility based on date of birth.