Men’s Interests

Why is it when I attempt to do a little digging I end up falling into a huge hole?

While preparing to write an article about my online dating adventure I decided to look for ratings of the different companies. I thought I’d hit a gold mine when I came across RipOffReport. It listed several of the dating sites I’m using now. Most of the complaints were from people who were charged after they’d already cancelled their memberships. Many said that contacting the companies did no good, that they had to use a consumer’s site to help.

Other complaints were that members were still listed after other members told the companies they were part of a Nigerian scam. Okay, I’ll be honest. I have no sympathy for the woman who didn’t wise up until she’d already given a guy $1,000.

I was planning on linking to the rip-off site…until I did more digging…on the site’s owner. First I learned that he’s won a couple of lawsuits filed against him. The courts said he’s not responsible for things third parties post. It was looking good, so far.

Then as I kept digging I learned he’s been sued several times. The word “extortion” came up more than once. I looked at some documents that lead me to believe that’s exactly what he’s doing. Now don’t get me wrong; I’m not accusing him. (I certainly don’t want to be sued!) But what else am I to think?

On the rip-off site there are many complaints by end-users. At the end of each one there’s a form the accused can fill out so a rebuttal will appear online with the complaint. I didn’t see any rebuttals on the pages I visited. It turns out the owner sends the accused companies letters telling them that he will change the complaints to make them seem like wonderful companies, if they pay a fee.

In the documents I saw on BadBusinessRipOff he asked for anywhere from $1,500 to $50,000 to start, and that didn’t include the monthly fees he asked for to keep the rating positive. I’m curious how a current lawsuit will pan out, but according to another website he’s in hiding. His attorney has postponed a recent court date. Click here to see what wikipedia says about RipOffReport.

So, the ratings will have to come from me, and from people I ask. I’ll be doing some online polling and will let you know the results. If you’ve had good or bad experiences with online dating, please leave me a comment.

Another thing I came across in my now excavating was “rate-a-date” sites. These sites are for rating the individuals, not the services. I certainly don’t mind the gender-neutral sites like RateB4UDate and TrueDater. I did notice a lot more men listed than women, but I’m convinced that’s because men don’t use services like these as much as women do. If a man is scammed he usually keeps it to himself.

I do have a problem with one website called WomanSavers. The questions they ask seem leading to me; especially when written to women who are feeling scorned and angry. And according to the site, only the original poster can remove or edit the comments. What is a man to do if a woman lies about him?

Another issue I have with WomanSavers is their use of false statistics. I went to their page on infidelity, and after reading a lot of information about pornography and pedophiles I finally came to the part about cheating. Unfortunately, the statistics are all wrong. They wrote that up to 70% of men cheat, and probably more. They used statistics commonly used in the 1980’s, based on a faulty study done in the 70’s. And when they did use statistics closer to the truth, they added a disclaimer saying they could be wrong because of all the secrecy.

Makes me think the site is run by someone’s bitter ex. The truth is only about 25% of men cheat, and about 23% of women cheat.

I never got around to finishing my original article today. Seems there’s a lot more to the story than I realized. I’m happy to say that I haven’t had any of the negative experiences I’ve read about on other blogs. I’ve only communicated with and met nice guys. Maybe my strong intuition is helping.

Now to wash all this dirt off…