On July 12,
2003, I posted a Free personal ad. I immediately got 8 responses, so
on Aug 14 I paid for One months service. Before I could do anything
I received an email informing me my account had been Suspended
because it was "obscene"
Several emails to customer service
only got me an auto response. An email to Cheaters.com's webmaster
got me an email saying they had No responsibility or control of
their own site.
On July 24 I finally received an email from
Nicole at customer service who said she could find nothing wrong
with my profile, had re-instated it and changed the renewal date to
reflect the lost 10 days. She also gave me two extra 'credits' to
make up for the trouble.
When I logged back in, my inbox had
been erased. In the next two weeks it quickly became obvious there
were Serious problems with their site. Searches in a '25 mile
radius' returned matches in the Old Soviet Union, I live in
California. The search engine had no conception of "non-smoker" and little regard for the requested age brackets. I would find the same picture on 3 or 4
profiles. All such profiles showed "active in last 24 hours"
On Aug 12 I informed Dream Mates I did Not wish to
renew. On August 19 I got an email from Nicole saying it had been
taken care of. The next day I received notice from my bank that
Dream Mates had put through an E-check on Aug 19. On contacting
Dream Mates I was told the e-check had been sent through on
Aug.15th. This seems strange as they can put a charge through in less than
a minute when you sign up.
Bearing in mind that my renewal date was August
24 because of the unexplained suspension, I was charged 9 days
before it was due. A call to Dream Mates (a number that is Not on
their website) I was told that they simply do not make refunds,
period.
The bottom line is their service is poor, customer service is very poor
and I have strong suspions about the validity of their data base (out of 22 first contact emails only 2 responded). The search engine has no concept of distance or smoking preference.
So far I am out $24.95 to dream mates (on the unautherized charge), a $22 bad
check charge, a Second $22 for check I had outstanding, and $3 per
day from August 19th till Sept 2 for being Overlimit.
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