eHarmony Blog“This incremental payoff for our hard work allows everyone [of us] to focus on the mission.” — Founding eHarmony CEO Greg Forgatch, re: the $110 million venture capital they raised in 2005.
You’ve dealt with them personally, so you should be able to give your opinion. Tell us, what is eHarmony set out to do?
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Clearly, $110 millions dollars of venture capital comes with very serious strings attached. Obviously, they are in business to make huge profits, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. However, the way in which a company conducts itself in order to make that profit is what separates a quality company from a shady one.
It’s possible that their original concept was centered around providing a quality service that sincere singles looking for love could believe in. However, from my experience, I feel that they have and continue to employ highly questionable business practices designed to get inside our wallets. If they were more concerned with helping singles find love than they are about converting our romantic hopes into profits, then they would not employ certain business decisions.
Here are the main business decisions and practices upon which I’m basing my opinion:
1. Recurring Billing (aka Auto Renewal)
Forcing people to ‘opt out’ of auto renewal is a highly questionable business practice. In various businesses, the ethical way to use recurring billing is to allow members to “opt in” to it, if they truly wish to do so. The obvious difference is the member’s awareness and choice to do so. Doing it backwards as eHarmony do (and many other dating sites as well) is clearly only beneficial to the company, not to its members. This means putting profits ahead of people.
2. Not informing us which matches are current, active, paying, and able to reply if we take the time to contact them. This is obviously a very basic and extremely important piece of the puzzle. So, if maximizing a members’ time and energy in the search for love was truly the goal, then this information would be happily and proudly presented to us with each match. In my opinion, the fact that they hide this basic information makes it clear that they would rather flood us with a large number of matches (most of which we’ll never be able to communicate with) instead of delivering quality matches which we can actually feel confident about pursuing. To me, this is a very highly questionable business decision, which literally banks on a member’s curiosity, and hopefulness. Again, this quite obviously puts profits ahead of people.
3. No transparency regarding WHY each match is created. Have you ever reviewed a match and asked yourself, “Why did they match me with this person?” In my experience, there have been far too many matches who have been far outside of my desired criteria. Any reasonable person would agree that a quality matching system should respect each member’s autonomy and adhere to their most basic wishes.
I would not call this ethically questionable, but since countless members have experienced this time-wasting problem on eHarmony, it is fair to question the validity of their matching system which either makes too many ‘mistakes’ or too many assumptions. If time is valuable to you, as it is to me, then something should be done to make the system more efficient. Again, throwing tons of ‘matches’ at members hoping that some of them will entice us enough to get into our wallets is another way in which eHarmony puts profits ahead of people.
4. Free Communication Weekends… Ok, I have Always had an issue with these. How many times have you received a match and, after not receiving a response, wondered if your match signed up during a free communication weekend and then rarely, if ever, used the service again, much less paid for it? I cringe every time I see these because they seem to flood the site with more non-serious, ‘just curious’ people, which in turn are then sent to us as matched seemingly forever. I’m not certain, but I think they keep these profiles forever… This padding of membership numbers does nothing positive for sincere singles looking for a real relationship. It actually hurts members who are sincere about finding someone special by cluttering the site with huge numbers of non-serious members, which leads to tons of non-serious matches, which eHarmony doesn’t help us to sort out in any way, and hurts us all in the end…except eHarmony. Obviously, if it did not benefit eHarmony, then it would not be offered. It is reasonable to assume that eHarmony benefits greatly from this increasingly inflated membership number in some way or other. So, this is yet another way in which eHarmony puts profits ahead of people.
5. Price. Have you ever paid for a long-term subscription to eHarmony (or other expensive dating site) and thought, “Why is this so expensive?” It is reasonable to assume that you Don’t get what you pay for when you’re dealing with a ‘virtual’ service. Think about it… Is there a manufacturing process going on? No. It’s just computer programs cranking out ‘matches’ based on the data put in by members. Certainly the backend infrastructure of any large web site requires plenty of hardware, software, and constant maintenance in order to be delivered onto our computer screens reliably and efficiently. But we should not for one moment Overestimate the costs involved… Massive amounts of data can be handled very efficiently without huge expenditures of money these days. Basically, eHarmony charges too much in my opinion, and ‘corporate’ clearly makes out very nicely in the end. Yet another way in which eHarmony puts profits ahead of people.
6. Advertising. I don’t know about you, but I don’t particularly appreciate being exposed to so much advertising on eHarmony’s web site. It is reasonable to feel ‘farmed out’ to advertisers on eHarmony. There’s enough of that going on all over the Internet, but if eHarmony really wanted to put tehir members’ experience ahead of profits, then the very least they could do is not subject us to all of that advertising. Yet another way eHarmony puts profits ahead of people.
I could go on and on, but here’s the bottom line… It is reasonable to conclude that eHarmony’s mission is to maximize profits.
If a few people fall in love along the way, then so be it.
In addition, to the above the fact that eHarmony marketing and legal department or risk management speak in dissonnance voices. And the fact that they terminiate customers without giving them a reason or due process. And I find it disturbing after bragging about giving their customers compatible matches ( I think the claim is exagerated) they say in their terms and condition that there is no “express or imply guarantee” about the ultimate compatibility of these matches. The problem is everyone should read their terms and conditions. However, a corporation may or may not act on them and that is where the problem comes. Finally, the personality tests can not take into account the fact that maybe these customers maybe getting counseling and trying to work on their problems. The tester don’t know their customers.
Not to be redundant but here is their wording about compatibility. “You understand that the Company makes no guarantees, either express or implied, regarding your ultimate compatibility with individuals you meet through the Service.”
So in spite of the fact that they make future customers jump through hoops ultimately they back away from guaranting the matches will work.
Police records clerks fired after searching for dates
In a truly “what were they thinking” move, two records clerks at the Fort Myers Police Department were fired after reportedly misusing a classified search database to look up people one woman was considering dating. On March 21, 2009, clerks Carol Bass and Helen Lehman were let go after learning that Bass was researching potential dates on people who responded to her dating service ad. Her excuse? “I haven’t dated for 20 years, so I thought well, this might be a way to get information before I make a move.”
Now see might as well do it yourself if you can get away with it. And I thought five years was a long time to go without a date.
I do applaud sincerely ethical attempt to see if eHarmony has a moral compass. Perhaps that makes about three of us who are concerned about this. This blog seems primarily to be about promotional codes and getting inthe door, not about those who weren’t able to or bumped after they did. In all honesty, I think the only way eHarmony will change is if they lose some of their lawsuits. Or they face stiff competition with a better dating organization who lives up to their hype and doesn’t contradict themselves with their “terms and conditions.” It is too bad I think that it is hard to find someone once you reach a certain age and these dating corporations most of them don’t live up to their hype. They play on people’s needs and promise them things they really can not deliver. I am on Singlesnet.now and why I haven’t found anyone yet at least they do not promise a lot they can’t deliver and so it goes. In that sense they are probably more ethical than eHarmony. If I can not find someone through that avenue, I may try either Chemistry or Rewarding Love. I agree all eHarmony cares about is their bottom line. There is nothing alturistic about them.
What is eHarmony’s mission?
Haven’t you discovered it yet?
Don’t you understand the language of subtlety?
eHarmony is solely intended for White Caucasian persons from AngloSaxon origin, and Catholics as were the founders of a glorious nation, who arrived on the “first” Mayflower.
eHarmony is the “new” Mayflower.
Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
I am surprise you didn’t write WASP, white anglo saxon protestant. Actually the Church of England is not Catholic. Edward VIII formed the Church of England so he could remarry countless times. In addition, Dr. Warren I believe is a former minister of an evangelistic church. Anyway, I think their mission is to make money. And I think religion is a red herring. What they want is higher income professionals who have lead rather boring lives, to be their customers. Although I will say they are sympathetic to the ideal of not getting a divorce.
I do think they want higher income professionals. I do not think the race matters. The reason I say this because I think they believe that professionals will be easier to marry off. And let’s face it a professional person wants to have a good public persona. I could wrong about this I don’t think so. Someone stated that they had waitresses as matches and working stiff like me. I think it is highly unlikely that a doctor or high paying professional is going to want to marry someone who waits on tables. There is nothing wrong with that. Except you do not run in the same cricles. Unless you meet at church and or some interest group that transcends your occupation. That is just my take. And then if you meet at some interest group you don’t need eHarmony or any other dating service. Just my take.
I am not saying that I think professional are better matches. In fact I have said that I would like to be match up with an everyday working stiff like me, who worked as service rep, is a cook, works for the state, some corporation, even construction workers or anyone as long as they are fairly decent and have common sense. However, I saw few men like that on eHarmony. I do think for some reason eHarmony appeals to upper professional individuals. They may not narrow their search to that. However, I would not be surprised if they start doing that more.
Made a mistake Henry the 8th founded the Church of England. Just a freudian slip.
Just one thing more I know someone wrote that eHarmony cons people into taking their personality test and applying. That is probably true. I also think that this maybe the reason why certain customers don’t apply. Taking a personality test may be looked on as a invasion of privacy and personal. In addition, it is well known eHarmony rejects some of the applicants. Just a thought.
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