I was sucked in, pressured, and conned out of $1500 by Romance Pros in Tucson. I repeatedly asked to have a chance to think it over, but she gave me the broken record routine, "Oh, let's get you signed up today!" and probably because of my exhaustion and extreme stress levels from my teaching job (which I devote at least 50 hours a week to, in a neighborhood where drive-by shootings can occur) I succumbed.
She made all kinds of promises about highly personalized service, highest quality carefully screened clients, importance placed on religious preferences, need for feedback to fine tune the matching process, blah blah blah. She used the fear tactic of claiming that if I didn't use their service, I would be doomed to continue bringing home losers instead of the "keepers" they could provide.
After my first, and last, horrible date arranged by them (where the guy was a half hour late because he couldn't remember the name of the restaurant — even though he chose it! — showing up in a baseball cap and overgrown hair making him appear to have just crawled out of the woods and he told me about his three CPS investigations) I lost all confidence in their ability to find me a suitable date, let alone a life partner. I had seen this guy many times on Yahoo personals. She had written his name down at our meeting before so much as glancing at my profile.
Why? Because I mentioned the term "ex-hippie" and she thought of a new member who had lax grooming habits. He was about as far from being a hippie in his younger days, as one could be (he went into the military right out of high school). The "relationship expert" admitted that she took the term I mentioned, and "ran" with it, in an email following the dreadful event (i.E., one of the worst dates of my life). I showed up for the date early, in a little black dress. We had little to nothing in common. He claimed to have asked the expert's opinion on how he should dress for the date. Despite the fact that the feedback from his only other date through them, had been that he was "dressed too casually", the expert assured him that he should dress very casually to meet me.
She must have lied about the size of their database, and I am certain that she never looked at our profiles side by side and concluded that we seemed compatible. He was shorter than the height preference I stated, and was of the religion I said was the only one I had a problem with. It was clearly a haphazard, careless, and thoughtless matching process. They are playing Russian Roulette with the most personal aspect of their victim's lives while they pay an arm and a leg for it, in addition to the inevitable discomfort and disappointment... As well as wasted time and energy.
Right after she made a point of telling me that they don't accept anyone who isn't ready to be in a serious relationship, she told me about the new member who had been widowed just four months earlier. Any mental health professional can tell you that it is physically impossible to be emotionally ready to be in a serious relationship after such a short time of losing a partner.
I will not be able to take my usual summer break this year, as I will be home paying off the debt to my credit card for this most unfortunate err in judgment. I have complained to every public agency I could think of, but it is always their word against mine. I have filed a suit in small claims court, but the owners in Dallas have ignored the summons. I have been advised by an attorney to file suit against the sales representative for fraudulent inducement. I started a web page on myspace. I plan to print up flyers and hand them out in front of the business asking people to read my story online before they sign on the dotted line.
Hindsight is 20/20. We do stupid things when we are under duress. Romance Pros is engaging in unscrupulous business practices and they need to be held accountable for their exploitive and irresponsible behavior. My desire to warn off others, is as strong as the desire to recover my financial losses.
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