That time I got outsmarted by match.com when I thought I was outsmarting them…

I don’t know about you other online daters, but one thing that I really struggle with is how expensive it is.  Websites like match.com, eharmony, jdate, etc… not cheap.. and they require you to sign up for several months at a time.  OR, they make it much cheaper to sign up for 6 months instead of 3 months and I am TOTALLY one of those people who gets sucked into that; a perfect target.  I know there are some free websites but as of late I have not had a lot of luck on any of them and the creep factor was just too high.

 About a month ago I was struggling with the selection on match.com… it’s a lot of money to pay to get rejected that often.  It is also a lot of money to get hit on by only very strange, creepy, too old for me, too young for me men.  Just as I was feeling like I had wasted my money signing up for 6 months, my credit card was stolen.  I got a call from the company who told me the card had been compromised and I needed to cancel it immediately.  Ugh, I thought.  What a hassle.  But of course I cancelled it and got a new one.  About a week later I got an email from match.com with the subject line “please update your payment information.” HA! How are you going to take my monthly payments I promised if there is no card on file, huh?  So smart, Sara.  I just won’t update the card and I’ll be done with match with no penalties.  How are they going to make me pay? THEY DON’T KNOW MY CREDIT CARD INFORMATION! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!

Thinking I was oh so clever, I went in and updated my information on the important things like bills that were paid by this credit card and netflix (equal priorities).  I let match.com just sit there, no payments.  Then… they got clever too.  I started receiving emails that “someone” was interested in me.  When I clicked, match directed me to a page that said, “Do you want to know who is interested? Please update your payment information!”  Nice try match…

Then they got smarter.  I started getting emails that said “you have a message waiting.”  Yeah, sure I do.  But they persisted.  The emails began saying “you have a message from soandso.”  Uh oh.  I was starting to crack.  Be strong Sara, they could be lying.  But they probably aren’t lying… that would be like… fraud… right?  What if it is the man of my dreams?  What if he is just sitting in my inbox waiting for me and I am the RUDE person who is not reading his message.  Poor future husband.  I am so sorry.  Please forgive me!

Then they got smarter.  They increased the volume.  I still can’t figure out how they did this.  Did they start featuring my profile so more people would see it?  Did they photoshop my pictures and make me look like a supermodel?  If so, I would like these photos.  Where were all these emails coming from?  I would be just falling asleep and DING, email notification.  I would be at work at my desk and DING…. well RRRRR (vibration noise), email notification.  I would be in the car and my siri would tell me DING EMAIL!  I COULDN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!

I caved.

I went on match.com and entered the new credit card.  How many months would you like to sign up for?  Well 6 months is only $19.95…. 3 months is $27.95… what to do, what to do.  Obviously I signed up for 6 months… easiest target ever.  And there were all of these smiley faces all over the pricing page.  I am convinced that this somehow contributed to the brainwashing.

I go into my inbox all excited.  

Not one good prospect.  None.  Nada.  Nil.  I was sad.

Well played match.com, well played.

Love to all my readers and thank you for your patience while there was a break in postings!

Sara