Here's the way this works:
You are contacted by their telemarketing computer or like me, you run across their website. They make an appointment with one person, then when you arrive to speak to a different (sales) person.
In addition to their office, the sales person has a loaner room. The loaner room has a TV/VCR so they can play you a 9 minute brainwash blurb about how great their company is. Meanwhile, you've given them a credit card and your driver's license so they can run your credit and see how much you can spend.
The sales person has strategically placed pictures of their wonderful family and will comment that they found their spouse using this service also. They will even pick the creme of the crop profiles to show you as examples. I'm not sure if these are even real people in these example profiles. The sales person got really nervous when I started writing down the names and profile numbers.
When I asked if I can simply search by the profile number, she said no, only by first name and a few other non-unique traits (smoking, kids, etc.). They will also compliment you and tell you that you will have no problem finding interested people in their program.
Now that they have run your full credit report which they claim is to make sure you are not married or a criminal (like them), they offer three levels of membership which have been priced very close together so that the obvious choice is the most expensive, all-inclusive one.
Here is where they steal your money. They have your full credit report, so they know what credit cards you have and how much available credit you have on each card. They offer you pricing that will just barely fit on the card with the most room.in my case, I had a Citibank card which has around $7500 available credit. The price of the VIP membership, which the photo shoot and video totaled $7409.00. Gee, wonder why they didn't take the last $91.00.
$7400 for a dating service, seems a bit expensive. No, it seems very fraudulent. Had I seen pricing after the first two times I had asked, I could have made a fair decision. I was not given pricing until after my credit report came back. After a little research I found most victims were paying $2700 to $3500.
Buyer beware, these guys don't play fair. A few things I've learned from this:
1. If they won't give pricing up front, they probably don't have standard pricing.
2. If they have a one-day only price, its a scam, they don't want you to have the time to make a well thought out decision or to do research on their company.
3. A contract that says "You shall not request, refunds, cancellations or recissions of any kind" means they know you will ask once you realize the service isn't worth what they charge.
0 comments