Reviews of eHarmony

1 star awarded: The eHarmony system of rationing matches. It's MUCH better than the Yahoo/Match.com meat-markets that I experienced. Your profile WILL be read. (I recommend that if eH cannot give you an adequate number of matches per month that you quit eH.)

1 star awarded: The eHarmony system of communication steps. This allows meaningful and difficult questions to be asked before too much time is invested with a match. Since I was using eH to find a long-term partner, I didn't mind that it was a slow process.

1 star not awarded: Dishonesty. eHarmony sends matches for "members" who can't respond (either former paying members or trial members). I received about 1,000 matches in the 1 year that I was a member and observed some suspicious patterns.

1 star not awarded: 29 dimensions of compatibility - total B.S. As mentioned above, I received about 1,000 matches in 1 year. The "compatibility" between me and my matches was "all over the map"; probably close to random. Only the sheer volume helped.

1 star not awarded: Total lack of customer service. It's basically an automated system; a "cash cow" for its owners. However, there are flaws in their business model that cannot be cured with customer-service-bots. When I was issued a new credit card, I *could not* change it on eH's account web page. A phone call to customer service solved the problem ...temporarily. The following month I was removed for non-payment. Only after I wrote a snail-mail letter to eH headquarters did I get resolution to my problem - complementary 2 months membership ;-) I do not know if their web page was ever fixed, since I never paid for any months after that.

No stars considered: The honesty, integrity, maturity, beauty, income level, dental hygene or criminal record of your eH matches should have no bearing whatsoever in the rating of this site - or any other site that does not guarantee to perform background checks. That's life as you'll find it in any venue.

2 bonus stars awarded: eHarmony connected me with a woman that I've fallen in love with.

After twice trying eHarmony, I seriously question their practices and integrity. During the total of about 12-14 months that I was a subscriber, I never had communication with even one person. Even if I could accept the idea that there might not be a match for me, what I find totally dishonest is that the moment I cancelled my subscription, I received a match, which I could only respond to by being a subscriber. Hmmm...how coincidental. Once I realized that they keep matching you even when you're no longer a subscriber, I also realized that that might have been the reason I never connected with anyone...they were matching me with subscribers who were no longer active either. Customer Service admitted this to me. A dear friend of mine had the identical experience.

Also...when you call their customer service number, no matter what time of day or evening you call, or how many times you call, you always get the same recording, "We are experiencing high call volume. Please call back at a later date." Nice. No harmony here...e or otherwise.

Horrible! I've never had one conversation with anyone, let alone actually meet a guy in person. I've been on there for 9 months now, and have only received about 4 matches, none of whom looked interesting to me. What a waste of money this has been....

So I signed up for a year, but after the first two months, with less than 1% of the matches ever responding I started to realize the people on the other end were not even online or around(since you cant tell the last time the user logged in). That was with a world wide match of women without children ages 25-40. Eventually they canceled my account about 7 month in to my 12 month for some reason, but I was still getting communication from one of the matches!!! My account was still active even though they "canceled" my account. So my account is still being matched to people so that they can keep their numbers up!!! Makes me wonder how many of the matches were closed account kept around for revenue generating purposes. FRAUD! save your money and go to a bar.

I turned 35 and flipped: I joined eHarmony (or as I like to call it LowerYourStandards.com or SocialDeficits.com)for one year thinking that it would take at least a year to find someone decent and it seemed to be the cheapest way to go ($20 per month). $250 is the price I pay for my "age-related" angst. I agree with the others: eHarmony sucks. This is month two of the subscription and I've already called about a refund. The pleasant eH drone I spoke to said I could not talk to his supervisor, and that he could only send to me an address via email to which I could submit in writing a request for a refund. He then stated eH does not offer refunds... After the fifth blind date, I purchased Ian Kerner's book: Be Honest: You're Not That Into Him Either, which is a hilarious read. The book made me feel much better. Kerner states that online dating turns people into a packaged commodity; is a superficial way of meeting people; nothing scientific about it; pictures posted were taken 10 years ago; and people become "addicted" to the dating treadmill. I still find it difficult to ignore "interested" parties from eHarmony - even though I know that the next blind date will be more of the same...it is a treadmill.

I love the reviewer who said the women are either obese or have serious drinking problems. As far as my observations are concerned - for the most part, the men look nothing like their photographs...I think everyone makes themselves out to be something they are not: "occasional drinker"/"never smokes." The last guy I met was a problem drinker and big time smoker...which no problem, if that's what you asked to be matched with...

Good luck to the rest of you who are stuck on the treadmill as well...

I think the website is a total waste of time. I joined foe one month and was only able to actually talk on the telephone with 1 person. When we met up he was painfully shy and confessed to me that he had never had a girlfriend. This was alarming to me (he was 35 years old) and although he seemed very nice, the whole process of connecting to someone this way is very unnatural and I would not recommnd this site to anyone.

I had really high hopes for this service. I was taken in by the ads. Me, a non-conformist and sceptic of advertisements. Simply put, I think Neal Clark Warren is a snake oil salesman. I joined for six months more than a year ago and received mostly profiles of dog lovers (I prefer cats) who were much taller than I (I'm 5'5") and interested in things that were the furthest thing from my agenda. Honestly I'm not sure where they found these people and why they thought I had anything in common with them. I did meet a few folks but overall the service was very disappointing. I was taken in by their 24(?) levels of compatability. Honestly, I wonder if they really exist and whether they just send you matches at random.

One guy's perspective of EHarmony:

Advantages:

1. After taking the personality questionnaire and completing your profile, the system does the work for you. You get your matches, send them 5 multiple choice questions and see if they respond. If they do, you know your match has at least some interest. There is no investment of writing some great (or not so great) email that may or may not be read.

2. There is no search function. And this is an advantage, you ask? Well, in a way, yes. Unlike Match and Yahoo, women are not going to be bombarded with a hundred emails right off the bat. They are going to receive a reasonable number of matches that they already assume have at least something in common with them. In a sense, you have a captive audience. For a guy, this means your chances of getting noticed are infinitely higher on EHarmony. Your profile WILL be read. I've also heard that the ratio of guys to girls on Yahoo and Match is very much in favor of the ladies while EHarmony supposedly has more women than men. I suspect that it will probably remain that way as the players are more likely to stay away.

3. It seems to have a much higher proportion of women who are serious about finding a mate with fewer drama queens and gold diggers. I've been on the site for almost three months now and I've only come across one head case and nobody that is concerned with my income. I'd say that personality wise, the quality is pretty good.

4. With the ad blitz these people have been running over the last 6 months, the pool of potential mates HAS to be expanding at a good rate.

Disadvantages:

1. There is no search function. Yes, it can be a blessing and a curse. You may have a time when the matches are not coming in as much as you'd like and you'll be curious as to what it would be like if you could create your own matches. Sorry. You can't.

2. Women on here are generally serious about finding The One. Just like the "no search function", it's good and bad. That means that each potential match is held to a higher standard than if they were just looking for a date. The pickiness can make it harder to get anywhere, especially if you are dealing with those that have a specific picture of their ideal mate in their head.

3. If you are looking for a hottie, you've come to the wrong place. That seems to be true with the women that are matched with my personality type, anyway. Of course, I am a bit of an introvert and the hotties seem to be the opposite (for good reason), so it may be different if you are an extrovert. Keep in mind that I am not looking for a model. I'm a solid 6.5 myself so I realize I would have to catch some great luck to land an 8 or a 9. I will say that on several occasions, I've looked at a woman's photo and based on that alone, she was a 5 or a six. After having read her profile, she jumped up a couple of points. So it isn't all about looks, but I'm not going to lie and say they don't matter at all.

4. Like most every site these days, they will send you matches of people that have taken the questionnaire and created a profile but haven't paid any money. You can send these people your initial questions, but they can't respond until they pay up.

5. There is no way to know when someone was active on the site. Say you send your questions and wait for a response. You haven't heard anything back for 5 days. Is it because they haven't paid up or maybe they just aren't interested? Maybe they've been out of town. Who knows? Not you. Unfortunately, quite a few of the ladies either have no backbone or really make it a point to keep their options open because I've had more than a couple that I'd be communicating with and then they just wouldn't respond all of a sudden. They wouldn't close the match to let me know they weren't interested either. So did they flake out or did their membership expire? Your guess is as good as mine.

6. The good Dr. Warren says that things like weight and body type are not listed on the site because it's what's underneath that matters. Oddly enough, height IS listed and if you're a guy under 6 feet, this can be a drawback. It seems unfair because ladies like tall guys and guys like non-fat ladies, but only one gets the advantage of knowing what's what initially.

Advice:

1. If you are a guy (or woman, for that matter) looking for a long-term relationship and you live in a major metropolitan area, you're an idiot if you don't at least give it a shot. If you live in the sticks, you'd better be prepared to travel because I bet it's hard to find matches in smaller towns.

2. Have some patience. The way the site is set up, communication can be SLOW. The process is very structured initially and this can really make it drag.

3. Don't be so bitter like most of the people on this site. Yes, online dating sucks. Yes, EHarmony could be better but if you were all that, you'd be out meeting people in the real world and wouldn't have to deal with all of this. But EHarmony isn't nearly the beating that Yahoo is for the average guy.

4. This goes for both men and women: you have the ability to choose the stage of communication at which you share your picture with your mate. I urge everyone to do so from the get go. It has been my experience that those who hold back are doing so for a reason, so you invest some time and energy in this person, they do the same for you and then eventually you see that the person you are talking to is not attractive to you at all. It becomes pretty obvious when things are going along fairly well and then come to a screeching halt once you poke your head out there. Don't set yourself up for that. I made my photo available from day one just so I could avoid that.

While I liked being able to browse through the pictures and profiles, I concluded the Match.com was not for me. The men write dozens of e-mails with no responses. Attractive women who post their picture have to sort through hundreds of e-mails.

I ended up signing up with eHarmony and it worked well for me. I like the fact the eHarmony matched me with women that I had a few things in common with and I could decide if I thought there was potential. If I liked the picture and profile, I simply selected 5 multiple choice questions for her to answer. If she responded great, if not, I saved a lot of time. I appreciated that there was a minimal time investment until we both had decided to investigate the possibilities further.

I think that I was a bit of a challenge for eHarmony. I live out in the middle of nowhere. I don’t think there are 1000 people within 10 miles of me. Still, I found a wonderful woman that loves me for who I am. What more can a guy ask for?

I know when I first started my eHarmony experience, I wish I had the benefit of some thoughtful advice. I have spent a lot of time considering our eHarmony experiences and I came up with a number of eHarmony tips and suggestions. If you are curious, they are posted at: www.RomanceForEveryone.com

eHarmony certainly isn’t for everyone. If you are serious about finding someone to share your life with and you are willing to invest the time, I think eHarmony is a good option to consider.

This service was aweful for me. I know I'm an odd duck, but they consistently had very few matches for me. I called at some point and they said to hang tight. They finally did come up with a barrage of matches... just as my membership was ending, and then immediately after it had ended. Looks fishy to me... what, all of a sudden there are matches o'plenty for me, but I have to renew my membership to find out who they are. It seems clear to me that their computer bends the criteria a bit when they want to string along your membership. A manipulation atbest. Shitty!