Reviews of eHarmony

After joining Eharmony I was thrilled when I immediately received 30 matches. I am a fairly attractive and intelligent woman so I thought I would have a date in no time. What I found is that the 30 matches were not members. After days of receiving more matches and not getting any feedback from the members I tried to contact - I suddenly realized the game Eharmony was playing.

I called them and requested that they ONLY set me up with paid subscribers. They told me that was NOT POSSIBLE. They told me to wait until one of them decided to subscribe and then communication would start.

WHAT A WASTE OF TIME - IT'S A SCAM.

I joined eHarmony as a whim in the spring of 2007. I'd already had only minor (and fleeting) success with yahoo! personals and match.com. It was a lot to join but I thought in the end, if it prevented the problems with being completely and totally incompatible with my matches, it was worth it. The quiz was long, yes, and tedious, but again - isn't finding someone for life worth a couple hours of your time to do it right?

I was active for 3-4 months, sending a lot of first communications, getting to some second question ones but rarely getting to open communication. After I had two first dates with two different guys that I felt no connection with, I gave up and changed the settings to send me no matches. When my year was almost up, I decided to get my money's worth and give it another go. After another month, I was matched to the man who I ended up marrying.

Yes, there are flaws in the eHarmony system. As with anything. The open communication option at the beginning of a match failed a few times, my matches weren't always what they claimed to be and I had a friend who was told they could find no matches for him. But...in the end, it helped me find the love of my life.

EHarmony works if you are ready for that type of a match service. If you are going after just looks, use something else. If actual compatibility is important to you, use something that actually tries to gauge your personality and values. My biggest issue with Match.com and Yahoo! is that I had people I had nothing in common with that I met for drinks. It was a waste of time.

Also, asking you to change your qualifications isn't asking you to lie. It's telling you that you need to decide what is a deal breaker and what isn't. If you mark no drinking, and you actually just don't want to marry a partier, you might find that marking "never drinking" for your match might limit the parameters too much - and that your match might exist as someone who considers themselves an occasional drinker.

End of story: eHarmony is a computer program created by a person, ut's not itself an intelligent being. It doesn't take into consideration misunderstandings, human error or pure stupidity. It simply gives you results for the values (i.e. answers) you put in. If you have no matches, check back in a week. You might simply be unique enough with your personality and your preferences (including distance) that no one fits it at the moment. It's hardly a computer dating service insulting you.

A quick complaint: 75% of the new matches I received had no photos and maybe completed 4 out of the 15 or so profile questions. I am actually starting to think that eHarmony was creating bogus profiles just to pad the number of new matches that one thinks one is getting. And one profile in particular iced this belief for me. She mentioned no less than 3 times in her profile how important sex was to her: Name the things that you can't live without: sex; What are you looking for in a man: great sex. No photo. So either eHarmony's stringent filtering system let a complete whore through (unlikely) or this is a bogus profile. Either way, I don't buy it.

Just a random comment on the dating scene here in Manhattan. Note to white women: get over yourselves. You are not getting a prince, the son of a Greek shipping magnate, or the CEO of a Fortune 500 business. Why this trend has emerged can only be explained by a certified sociologist. But I'll try. The white women in NYC are so hyper competitive with men that they feel that they don't need a man (I actually had an eHarmony match state that in her profile: "I don't NEED a relationship; I WANT one." Well I didn't NEED to close her out; I WANTED to close her out. A-hole.) because they've accomplished everything that comparable men in their respective industries have. Well whoop-d-f#*king do! HEY LADIES - take a look around. ALL OF YOUR WHITE MEN ARE BEING SCOOPED UP BY ASIAN WOMEN! I am not exaggerating. Anyone familiar with NYC will be nodding their heads as they read this. White guys have had ENOUGH. Asian chicks just know how to be more feminine than these white female impersonators. Even the hyper successful Asian chicks are in touch with their demure, feminine sides. There has to be an army of lonely, though VERY SUCCESSFUL, white chicks out there, who just know that their knights in shining armor are waiting to burst through the Lincoln Tunnel on their trusty steeds (after paying the $5.50 toll) to meet them at their doorman buildings on Central Park West and whisk them away to a magical realm and live happily ever after. Don't hold your breath, honkettes.

FYI, I am a white guy and, recently, soon after my eHarmony membership expired, I met a wonderful INDIAN woman at THE ASIA SOCIETY!!! She is successful, earns a healthy 6 figure salary, has a phD and is completely feminine, down to earth and loving. What a breath of fresh air. HEY NYC WHITE GUYS: You're all on the right track: Asian girls are better. Don't waste your time with the white chicks in this town. They're all probably considering lesbianism anyway at this stage of the game, not that there's anything wrong with that.

I wish they had negative stars... Don't waste your money as the system is worse than match.com. It's so lame and the matches are not anything near what I was expecting. The one who move into open communication stage, just don't write much as it seems they're fishing elsewhere. What an idiot site.

If I could give no stars I would. I agree with most of the complaints here. I did get a match and we reached open communications...we had some sort of contact everyday and then he slowed down, hasn't yet closed me or said I think this may not work, just stopped. Why? Because the creep wanted phone sex and I was not going for it, so likely he found someone to go for it...so much for the sincere TV commercials claiming they are not like other sites...don't waste your money, especially if you are a middleaged woman (I am 50 -- hime 58)...

I have to say I'm not sure what to make of the site. I've been using it for two weeks and I, too, have noticed there are a lot of matches that will literally never respond to communication, even to close it. I've gotten to stage three with a couple who subsequently dropped off the face of the Earth, and I got to the email stage with one a couple days ago and am still waiting for a response.

But I will say all of the matches I've recieved appear to match me well. The guided communication is interesting. I think if they would just tell you the "last login" date of the match, so you could see if it's been hours days or months, would eliminate most of the gripes here.

I used to use OK Cupid since it was free but that turned into some sort of social-reject colony that I just couldn't communicate with. I figured a paid-site would weed things out and leave the people earnestly looking for a good long-term match.

I suppose you could say in eHarmony's defence that these unpaid members who are being used as "decoys" could eventually become paid members and respond, so it wouldn't be fair to exclude them from everything? I'm not sure.

I'm witholding judgement but I'm probably not renewing after the three months is over.

If you look around you'll find lots of reviews of eHarmony listing why they're rejected. They were homosexuals, not Christians, have tattoos - but there's one that everyone's afraid to say.

I was rejected not once, but THREE TIMES for being FAT.

eHarmony claims it's test is a personality test but 99% of the questions are about how physically active and fit you are and nothing to do with personality.

eHarmony won't accept fat people. It doesn't match by personality but by looks. Avoid it at all costs. You're better off at a bar.

I joinned eHarmony two years ago and I have not met one single man. All of my so-called matches are either too old, nothing in common, or live too far away. The matches that I DO like, close the match on me. Or they never respond to my communication requests. I had one guy that I was in communication with, and just when we were ready to exchange phone numbers, he bails. Another guy used a photo of himself that had to be at least 10 years old. I thought eHarmony would be different than the other online dating sites but I was wrong. It is totally over-rated. I think a lot of men on these sites are not serious about finding a long lasting relationship. I'm getting too old for these stupid games, and I don't want to waste my time anymore.

I created a free Eharmony. I found it interesting that Eharmony does not allow you to view images unless you are a member. I wrote to Eharmony, explaining that part of the alure of joining a site is the images along with the content. I explained that I'd joined catholicmatch.com because I saw a user's image and their content and felt ok about joining to write back to the user. I explained to Eharmony that had I seen the images of the users they'd matched me with, I might have joined.

Below is the reply I got back

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Thank you for contacting eHarmony Customer Care.

We can understand your desire to view photos of your matches, however it is necessary to be a subscriber to do so.

Many of our members come to eHarmony because of this emphasis on what's inside a person. We try to provide an alternative to the dating sites that send out hundreds of matches based on little more than geography and common interests. As America's #1 trusted relationship site we have made a conscious decision to withhold photos from non-members to prevent photo shopping. We feel that it is important for all of our members to be equally engaged and invested in the service before moving forward into viewing pictures and communicating.
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Maybe I don't understand what she said. Photo Shopping? What's Inside a person? So I take it that If I pay 59.95, then I can go photo shopping and that many of the users don't show their photos?

I could be wrong, but methinks this is a ploy.

I met my soul mate on eHarmony. We were matched perfectly. We have a lot in common. We went on vacation after a month of dating and got engaged not even a year after meeting and we got married three months after we got engaged. He is the love of my life. I thank eHarmony for matching me up with my now husband. Next weekend, we will be married for a year.