Reviews of eHarmony

I have tried eharmony in the past. In fact, I have never, ever actually talked to anybody from eharmony as a potential date or in customer service.

I am convinced that they are the biggest scam in online dating. I hear people in here getting lots of matches. I rarely got any and the ones that I got rarely responded. I was not overly restrictive either and lived in a major metropolitan area.

Save your money. There are cheaper and better sites. While other sites have their flaws, you would at least be able to find your own matches and initiate contact.

When cancelling eharmony, you must be very clear and assertive in your emails. You must also be very persistent. They will not make it easy for you. Document and save all correspondence.

Ok - I tried this thing for a week now so this is hardly a comprehensive review.

My experience in the past included Match, Yahoo and a few free sites.

I do have plenty of experience meeting people and understanding the whole online dating process. eHarmony is great for people who don't want their photo publicly displayed and who dislike writing a creative profile. Since the steps for communication are automated, this is a good system for first time daters who aren't sure how things are supposed to work. I'm not overly impressed with their claims of matching via "dimensions" as that still seems to omit important criteria. Where eHarmony is really terrible are the profiles. They are ALL alike, full of cliché, essentially created by checking boxes, lot's of boilerplate, give very little substance other than photo quality to judge someone on. I've gotten to the point of where I instantly close: - anyone out of state - anyone without kids (I assume this to be anyone who doesn't mention kids as one of the "can't live without") (I'm sure as hell not matching with a childless 45 year old woman) - anyone without a photo - anyone whose profile doesn't mention some remotely interesting item that the person likes to do - if it's all boilerplate I close Since eHarmony only sends 7 matches per day -- on most days this means 4 or 5 people of my matches are instantly closed. Then in those instances where you communicate, the people take varying degrees of time to return a 4 question multiple choice survey.

eHarmony suggests giving them 2 weeks to reply. Personally I think if someone cannot fashion a reply in under a week they're either too stupid or otherwise not available to date (for whatever reason - no interest, already semi-involved, etc.). It's not as if these are take home essays -- it's multiple choice! Yes, people can be traveling or have other valid reasons - but I bet those are the minority. I still find Match to be the best in my area for variety of people. The profiles give you more than enough information to learn whether you might have something in common with them. Plenty of Fish was the worst. It's free and attracts all sorts - the majority of which do not appear to be serious in their pursuit. eHarmony wins points with me for being expensive -- which I think in turn produces people who are much more interested in actually dating. Only about 2 to 5% of the matches I've received seem to be on other dating sites. I'll be surprised if I meet one person from eHarmony.

I used eharmony for about six months. In some ways, I thought it was a good site. In other ways, I didn't like it.

I never actually met anyone while a member. I did get tons of matches, and I even got a few (temporary) email pen pals out of it, but I never met that special someone. Oh well. I can't moan too much about that. Regardless of how well-designed the site is, it isn't going to work for everyone.

First, I'll discuss the things I liked about eharmony. I liked the "privacy." I used the word privacy in quotation marks due to the old adage that there is no actual privacy on the Web. But I digress. I liked that not just anyone could look me up and view my profile and picture. Only people that had been deemed compatible with me could see me. That was nice. I also liked the personality test I had to take. It was pretty lengthy, but I liked the synopsis that it gave about me and my potential mate. In fact, I still like reading through that thing from time to time.

Most of the things that I didn't like have to do with the fact that people are involved, and when you have people, you have static. I did get a little irked when I found that most of my matches either didn't respond to me or closed me out. I know it's important to be thick-skinned about these things, but it can get disheartening to constantly get ignored or closed out because your match "doesn't feel that the chemistry is there." Some people may criticize me for it, but my self-esteem did take a few blows while I was at eharmony. However, when I get rid of the emotions and look at it objectively, I realize that this is inevitable. As much as we all complain about superficiality, most of us are, indeed, superficial. Let's face it, most people want a significant other that our friends will covet us for having.

I do have one little issue with the site. When I completed that personality test, it gave me an overview of the overall personality of my ideal match. In short, my ideal match was supposed to be a mild-mannered intellectual who is a little bit on the introverted side, and who "likes to look good, but doesn't obsess about it." However, many of my matches were nothing like this. In fact, a good number of the women I was matched with described themselves as very outgoing and prone to enjoying frequent social events such as parties. Also, in response to the question about how many books they've read, several of my matches responded with things like "I don't really read...hehehe." When I read their profiles, I just kind of sat back and thought, "Gee, this doesn't sound too much like my ideal match." Of course, I still requested communication with them, because I think it's important to keep an open mind about these things and not snub people just because they don't initially seem like your "type."

That pretty much sums up my experiences at eharmony. In closing, I'll answer one more question.

Would I recommend eharmony to anyone else?

Well, I did learn a little about myself while I was there, and ultimately, I think my skin is a little thicker now. If you want to try it, go ahead. But bear in mind, in online dating, your appearance is going to play a vital part in whether or not people accept you. Make sure you put up a really good, recent picture of yourself. You may want to go as far as having a professional picture taken.

Before I close, I'll make one more comment about appearances at eharmony and other dating sites: If you don't look like you could be a model for Calvin Klein or Abercrombie, then don't get your hopes up too high if you decide to try any of them.

I've been using that crap site for 2 years at the cost of over $700 and have received over 600 matches. I'd give them 0 stars if it were an option. Most haven't responded or we didn't have enough in common to take it any further. Most don't provide a photo or they provide photos where their face isn't clealy shown. One match actually asked me about my breasts! I went on two dates with one that didn't seem too odd. We had nothing in common. I met another match that would be a good friend but nothing more. I dated one for 6 weeks this summer and it was great. I thought they had finally done their job. I eventually found out he misrepresented himself. He claimed he only drank about once a week but in the last two weeks we were toghether he was drinking 4 days a week. It ended with his friends getting drunk and getting him drunk and bar security had to break up the fights twice in one night. Very mature for a 37 year old man! He shut me out because I was concerned about that type of behavior. He had met my parents the week before and I was to meet his parents the next day. I was going to his cousins wedding in South Dakota two weeks after this happened. I thought it was going great until then. He broke up with me in an email because my reaction was "a big turn off" and he was too busy with work for a relationship. I found out two months later he had moved on and was dating someone else. Probably someone he had met at the wedding I was to attend with him. I guess it could have been worse. He could have raped me and killed me. When I contacted them about my experience, they suggested I retake their test and fully fill out the questions. Like it was my fault! Can we get together and take them to court to get our money back? Too bad there's no way for them to give us back the time they wasted for us!

To all complaining about "dead" profiles - here is the secret.

When you get your "matches" -- do NOT click on them to look at the details. Instead wait a day or two.

Any of the matches where a live person has clicked, will filter to the TOP of your matches page (so long as you have the SORT BY RECENT ACTIVITY selected).

Those that remain unopened are dead profiles and can be closed.

Yeah... I got suckered into eHarmony as well. Went with the 1 year subscription to increase the chances of finding "the love of my life" as depicted in the commercials. M looking for F +/- 5 years of my age (48 at the time). I got one. That's right. One. One match. I searched many times on my own only to find there were no matches. Their suggestion - to change my profile or to be less restrictive in the characteristics I listed for that special someone. To change my profile would not reflect who I am. To be less restrictive - I wasn't that restrictive in the first place: non-smoker; no kids or kids not living at home; anything but red hair; caucasian; divorced/never married/widowed. How restrictive is that? I would not recommend eHarmony. Not to anyone.

I'm a single dad with two kids and never get out so friends who'd seen the same ads as me suggested I check this site out and yes I'd seen the slick ads and I'm normally very wary of these kinds of sites... being in my 40's should have told me that it was BS. This site is ridiculous. STAY AWAY!! The matches it kept coming up with were so bizarre. Giant blond women in Idaho, Colorado,Oregon when I'd been specific in my preferemce for smaller dark womed within 50 miles of my Bay Area location. When i complained to the non existent customer service and told them I will close my account i suddenly got matches from women closer but still no where near my taste. The most irritating part was that it renewed my account after one month automatically after I'm certain i chose the option to end after one month. there is no one to speak to and i cannot prove it. All you get are automated responses because they have to deal with these same issues over and over again. Since joining i have spoken to others about eharmony and the opinion is the same.. it's bogus. Just a slick con preying on the vulnerabilities of single people in these disconnected times. It's yet another slickly packaged con.

In my opinion eharmony is the worst dating site on the net and no one should spend a single dollar to participate. Many friends who have used it agree with my assessment. I tried eharmony for nine months and the matches were inappropriate and did not come close to being compatible. Truly a piece of garbage. Don't waste your time or money. The eharmony website deserves zero stars but that was not an option on this review site.

For some reason, I still remain hopeful with this site. I've been on and off with my membership for almost 3 yrs, (yes, 3 yrs) and when I'm off, I get this overwhelming feeling of hopelessness. When my membership is on, I get a certain feeling of peace in the fact that an active search is in place and maybe there is a perfect, wonderful match out there that will be doled my way at anytime. I feel most of the matches are of higher caliber with eHarmony mainly because it is more expensive than other relationship sites and also I figure anyone who takes hours (if not days) to complete the million question questionnaire has to be somewhat serious about finding "true love". The Bars and church mixers are your true crap shoots. Talk about the misfits! You have absolutely NO idea the background of the persons you are meeting. At least with eHarmony, you hope you have some idea (if honesty has taken place). I think eHarmony does the weeding out for me. I would have never found the time or energy to physically meet 500+ men the old conventional way. I have tried Match.com and to tell you the truth it was a little creepy knowing you were just out there plastered where anyone and everyone could take a peek. I found out that I was "viewed" several times during the hours of 12 midnight and 4 AM with no request to communicate. Creepy.---- I could be way off the mark about eH but considering myself a "veteran" at this, I still have confidence that someday my prince will come. It only takes ONE unbelievable match....remembering "you have to kiss a lot of frogs"........

I'd rate them a 0 but 1 star is your lowest number. Reading the other reviews all I can say is " ditto ". But what's worst is after the first month I paid the Bill me Later statement and wrote Cancel on it. They keep sending me bills, I called the credit Co. and they said I need to cancel the account though eharmony. I've tried calling them, just a recording with no live people. Tried email, no reply. Please just make it stop!