Reviews of eHarmony

I have signed up for eharmony several times, always in response to heavy advertising and promotional offers from their sales team. I have been matched with literally hundreds of people over the course of my enrollment with them and have had actual dates with...two men. Yes, you read that correctly. One was 14 years older than me and the other was a lifelong bachelor in his 50's with dark "secrets" he intimated at but never chose to share. The first time I signed up, I initiated communication whenever I thought there was potential. Not once did I get a response. The second time I decided to let the men initiate and see if that would work better. It did; I got several weak responses. Still no dates. This last (and FINAL) try got more responses, mostly from men I was matched with who lived hundreds of miles away (despite my request to only be matched with men living near me), not one of whom I ever actually met. I am an attractive woman. I am also intelligent and successful. I signed up at a dating site because my lifestyle and career put me in contact with a lot of married men but very few eligible single men. But apparently there are no takers for me on eharmony.com. I keep getting seduced to sign up by my own coercions that say that since the founder is a psychologist and a Christian man, it must be a reputable site. My experience says that despite the sales pitches and attractive packaging, this product does not deliver. Kind of like Jim Baker I suppose. Or Ted Haggard.

I've used eHarmony twice during the past 5 years. The first time I was with eH, I met someone who was a good match and we married within a year. She was actually my first literal match sent, but that I know is just a matter of chance. We have divorced after about 4 years together, but remain good friends, for which I am grateful. As most reviewers here have figured out, the compatability system is smoke and mirrors. You will receive matches based on region and locality more than any other factor. You will receive more matches if you are in their database as Christian (as compared to other choices such as Agnostic or Athiest). You should expect that the majority of your matches will be inactive and unpaid members, who have no way to contact you -- unless, in one of the text fields you enter a timely message and type out your email address in some disguised manner, so that there is the chance that even invalid members who do view your profile can contact you. I have had this work several times and actually had pretty keen people emailing me, from my list of otherwise non-member matches. Example of such a phrase: "The Dems have just met in Denver and chosen Obama, and my email address is blahblah @ oohay with service provider spelled backwards." ... Such as me, dellforum001 @ liamg . moc ... It's frivolous to purchase a one-month subscription -- there won't be enough time to be able to communicate to enough people -- only jump in when you can get a package of not more than $23 per month. You can search for eH coupons, there are always many versions of coupons out there. I strongly suggest making a new profile and turning on matching, then just don't go back to the website (as in DO NOT LOG IN at all) for two or three weeks. They will send you loads of matches in the attempt to entice you to log in (and pay to join). By about the third week when you log in again for the second time, you will have a slew of matches to start with, and hopefully will have garnered a deal for between $20-$23 per month. They will send you better and better priced deals the longer you wait to go back and log in for that second time. Like anything else, it will be what you make of it. Try to make the initial questionnaire a 'middle of the road' psychological profile, and by all means I can't stress enough to list yourself as Christian as it is of course the dominate representation in the USA. Be creative and don't just hit radio buttons when you reply to people. Include their name when replying, even if it is a radio button response of 240 characters or less. You want to engender the feeling that you are engaged. For those individuals who are active members with whom are matched, take the time to read their whole profile and learn something about them. You won't come across as interesting if you ask questions such as what is their favorite movie, etc. It's what you make of it, like anything else in life. I had a great experience the first time and plan on having a great experience this time, too.

i met my husband off of eharmony. i had a really great experience with it, and i had never tried a dating site before. my close friend bought me a membership since i was so stubborn, and i'm glad that i did. i'm sorry that so many people on this site have had a bad experience, but the nature of finding your soulmate isn't always easy. you have to kiss a lot of frogs to get to your prince no matter what...good luck everyone :)

I met someone in August of 2006 (was the third person I went out with from eHarmony). We couldn't be happier as we are perfect matches in every possible way. We have a 2 month old daughter and are getting married in October.

I think that pretty much sums it up. Guess everyone gets something different out of it.

No rating (- 5 was not an option); just two words...RIP OFF. I tried to cancel my subscription VERY shortly after signing up (asking only for the remaining $$$ for the time I had left on the membership) since the matches sent me were all long distance and inaccessable; their response..."no refunds"...just keep feeding the website with pics and info. I was eventually sent a survey from eharmony which asked if I would ever use the site again to which I replied "NO"...needless to say the matches stopped coming through although I still had a couple of months left on the membership. The TV ads are appealing but in my opinion should be regarded as false advertisment because only when you let go of the cash do you find out they're full of bologna! Mr. precious grandpa face matchmaker 70 yr. old Neal Clark Warren (as the media refers to him), I'm sure is retiring comfortably on those of us who padded his pockets only to be deceived...he's a financial genius when it comes to taking advantage of people's hearts! I hope this serves as fair warning to those who might be considering membership...it's not worth it...believe me!

Besides the other things listed, I found that I could not control my own matches. I asked to be able to remove closed matches, but was told I could not, just, in case some how they might be reopened. I have enough things controlling my life, without paying some useless dating service to force me to look at all the men who closed me out. Management of my own matches, should be my own choice. That's when I canceled.

I got a total of 16 matches in nearly 3 months and only one communicated with me, and screened me out after 2 rounds.

One note to the person who wrote about getting put on hold for not having a picture, eHarmony does not allow you to see his picture if you do not have one yourself. Chances are he had a picture. Another note, why should I put time and energy into trying to get to know you when I have no idea whether I'll be physically attracted to you? And why won't you post your picture, what am I supposed to assume about that?

eHarmony seems to work best for those in the prime age demographics and highly populated locations. If you're having trouble with them charging you past your intended term, simply cancel the subscription halfway through or even as soon as you sign up. You will still get your month (or 3 or 6, whatever you paid for), and it will automatically stop when that time is up.

One of things that eharmony has done in spend big bucks on ad. all the ads are the same syrupy over the top commercials and they play everywhere from sporting channell to lifetime. I mention this because thats what eharmony is like. It has one way of doing things and doesn't change things up. I had tried it 3 years ago and then recently largely because with the specials its cheap. since that time eharmony hasn't evolved, questions are the same lameo questions and the process is exactly the same. Eharmony seems to run like most fancy gyms get people in take their money and then forget about them.

I'm going to have to agree with one user who said that alot of them women are bible thumpers and animal lovers to the extreme. whats wierd about the whole process is that woman who you have never met or interacted with before want to know first off very personal information. Maybe its just me, but i want to see if our personalities are compatiable before i start talking about very personal info. While supposedly eharmony matches you up with those highly compatiable with you, i really doubt that.

Basicly if there is a special, i would sign up and try it. You may accidentally stumble on someone that is compatiable. If after 3 months, it doesn't work for you, drop it because chances are it won't get better.

I have nothing positive to say about my experience with e-harmony. After joining, I received a flurry of matches, and then nearly nothing. For the next three months I averaged one match every other week or so. I live near Philadelphia, a major city, so I don't understand how there could be so few available single men. As my expiration date approached, I suddenly got lots of matches, 12 in the last two weeks of my subscription -- what a coincidence! And just how stupid did they think I was anyway? Overall, very few of the matches I received were compatible and most were way out of my geographic area. A complete waste of my time and money.

What was once a promising dating site has turned sour. I had used eharmony in the past, and had entered into relationships with great results. With in the last six months, I have watched this site fall. The points system is really just an overzealous Myers-Brigg personality test. The selection criteria I entered is not even factored in to the equation that links me with my matches. All I requested is a female with no children who lives around Philly. After a few weeks, I was suddenly getting "matches" with mothers in New York city - that's over 100 miles from where I live! The few matches I got, that were in my area, were clearly from women who had cancelled their account (eHarmnoy keeps inactive accounts actively matching), or were from women clearly just trying the free sample and had no interest in serious relationships. I strongly believe that the competition has got the better of eHarmony, and they are trying too hard to keep their share of the online dating dollar. Avoid this site, as they are clearly spending more money on advertising and gimmicks than on sticking to their mission of setting up couples.