It’s not often that a dating site comes along that looks like it has something positive and valuable to add to an already crowded marketplace. Crazy Like You is one of those rare sites that fills a genuine gap and is growing in popularity. So we’d like to hand the rest of this blog post over to Morten to introduce his new website and explain why he decided to start it. Over to Morten…
“When I got diagnosed with bipolar disorder, loneliness and lack of understanding was a major issue. Sitting in a therapist’s chair, I decided to investigate what options there were for social networking amongst fellow sufferers. There were loads of forums, but I really wanted a site where you could meet other people. I didn’t really find what I was looking for, so I started crazylikeyou.com, just to see.
It has all along been the intention to not treat mental health issues as a disease – more of a challenge. For me, it is something that should be embraced, not cured. And once you have come to terms with your condition you might want to interact with other people in the same boat. As mental health charity “Mind” research shows, 57% of English people would not date anyone with a “mental illness”, so where to go ? Another stated goal is for people to be upfront when they sign up. I think we’ve all seen the cookie cutter profiles on some websites. I sincerely hope Crazy Like You will encourage people to be open.
Admittedly, it’s a tough sell – selling a dating site is hard enough, with never ending competition. But selling it to people who struggle with mental health on top of it, there is suddenly another obstacle to overcome. It is not the case I don’t take mental health seriously, on the contrary – I know what it’s like being alone in the world. Crazy Like You is my way of coping.”
If you’re using the UK version of match.com and want to know how to cancel your subscription then here’s what to do.
1. At least 48 hours before your subscription is due to renew call the match.com customer service number: 020 305 96 492 (open 24/7)
2. Tell them you’d like to cancel your subscription and stop the automatic renewal.
3. That’s it.
What not to do:
1. If you have a paid for subscription then you can’t cancel your subscription online – you have to cancel by phone. There’s an option to ‘suspend you account’ but that’s just for taking a break from the site – it won’t stop your subscription being renewed.
2. Don’t call to cancel on the day or even the day before your subscription is due to renew. The match.com terms and conditions state that you have to give 48 hours notice when cancelling. Set a reminder on your phone or calendar so you don’t forget.
Deleting your match.com profile online doesn’t cancel your subscription
If you’ve paid for a subscription then deleting your profile won’t cancel your subscription – you still have to phone the number above to cancel.
Cancelling a 3 day or 7 day free trial
If you’re coming towards the end of a 3 day or 7 day free trial and want to cancel your membership then you can do it online:
1. At the top right of your screen go to ‘My Account’ -> ”My account settings’
2. Scroll down to the bottom of the Account Settings page and click the link ‘To suspend or delete your account, click here’
3. Click the ‘Suspend my account’ button.
4. Confirm your username and password and click the ‘Save’ button.
5. Select the second option then click the ‘Save’ button.
6. Click the ‘Delete my profile now’ button.
match.com auto renewal
Like it or loathe it when you sign up to match.com you’re agreeing to the following terms and conditions:
Upon expiration of a subscription, such subscription shall, except where the Member notifies termination thereof to match.com at least 48 hours before the subscription’s expiration date, be renewed on the same subscription package. In such cases, the renewal shall be performed in accordance with the manner of payment originally chosen by the Member, at the price rate of the subscription to which the Member originally subscribed. For the avoidance of all doubt Members can avoid having their subscription auto-renewed if they contact match.com 48 hours before their subscription expiration date to terminate their subscription.
So the 3 month subscription you bought will continue on to another 3 month subscription unless you change your subscription package or cancel your account. So take a note of your sign up date and a couple of days before the renewal date so you can make an informed choice whether you want to continue or not.
The bottom line
Pretty much all online dating sites with a paid subscription option go with the auto renewal option so protect yourself from paying for any unwanted subscription charges in the future by taking the precautions above. Call customer service ahead of your renewal date and ask them to cancel your subscription and stop any auto renewal taking place in the future. The downside is you’ll lose all of your profile info, contacts and emails so be sure to save any information you want to keep before you cancel.
Give Match.com UK a try without spending a penny! After years of using and reviewing online dating sites we’ve found the very best dating sites aren’t cheap. It takes a paid for site to offer all of the features, protection and quality control that you need for an enjoyable dating experience. That’s why we gave match.com our highest ever rating of 90% in our match.com review.
So when an opportunity comes along to try match.com for nothing for 3 days we’d recommend you take advantage of it! That way you won’t have to take our word for it and you can see for yourself whether you think match is the right kind of matchmaking site for you. You’ll be able to search through the thousands of members and communicate with anyone that takes your fancy without having to pay the usual membership fees. Check our article on match.com subscription prices to see how much you’ll have to pay if you decide to continue on after your 3 day free trial has ended.
The match free trial ends on October 31st 2011 so this is a limited time promotion only. How do you get the free trial offer? Just click on our offer link below and you’ll be taken to the match.com promotion page.
Match.com has been one of our favourite dating sites for a while. Why? Because it feels good to use, it’s easy to get around, it’s safe, it’s popular and above all – it works! We love it when a site delivers. Yes, it’s not a free site and not one of the cheapest dating sites out there but what you pay for, you certainly get.
Now there’s even more reasons to give Match.com a visit. They’ve renewed their site, giving it a completely new look and adding a few extra features that help creating that unique online dating experience. For example, Match.com now offers a completely current and modern instant messenger system that allows you to talk to potential dates right there and then. After all, emails are so noughties!
And we love what Match has done to the design on their site. It looks really fresh and up to date and it’s easier to use than ever before.
That said, we are a little sorry they don’t have the option to compare profiles based on compatibility any more. That used to be a pretty nifty feature. But to make that up they have added so many new and different options for performing a search that now it’s nearly impossible to be a member at Match and NOT find a date – a soulmate, serious relationship material, a lunch date, an online romance, whatever you’re looking for.
If you prefer the old style Match with it’s compatibility testing then we recommend their sister site Match Affinity which uses comprehensive personality profiling to match couple together. Read our Match Affinity Review for the inside scoop.
Meeting people used to be simple. You’d run into someone on the street, in the bar, at an office party, football game in a pub, sandwich queue… And it wouldn’t cost you anything. Well, except dinner and drinks at the date. But just meeting someone was free.
Then online dating sites appeared and for a while nothing changed. In the beginning of the online dating era, it all used to be pretty much free.
That is not the case any more. Most of the sites charge you nowadays, and while there are still plenty of dating sites that you can use for free, somehow a lot of people still seem to prefer those where a membership costs you a pretty penny.
Why? Why should we pay big sums of money for using online dating sites when instead we could just log on to one of the free ones and use it for a big fat nothing? We like to think of ourselves as pretty knowledgeable about online dating here at the onlinedatinghelp.co.uk office and so we’ve listed five good reasons why you should think about paying for your online dating experience.
1. The most popular paid sites have more genuine profiles – simple as that. If it doesn’t cost you anything to set up dates online, then you’re more likely to take a lighter approach to the site than you are when you have to invest to that decision. A lighter approach in itself is not anything bad, but there are about a million reasons why people take a lighter approach. They might already be in a relationship and are looking for a secret affair. They are curious about what’s out there. They’re bored. They want to have some little innocent fun. They are timewasters. They are spammers. Just to name a few. When you are serious about finding a date online, you surely don’t want to spend your valuable online time on a bunch of no-goods who are not actually committed to the whole thing. Of course there are genuine people on free dating sites too, it just takes you much longer to seek them out from the flotsam and jetsam.
2. Paid sites make an effort to match you with someone like you. Most of them have some kind of a profile test, which in itself is fun to fill and they will look out for your interests in finding someone truly suitable for you. Match, for example, has an extensive profile test, which defines your personality type while Eharmony’s test takes into account 29 different dimensions of your character. That means they’ve really put their mind and heart to their job of finding you a perfect partner.
3. Paid sites have loads of extras. Some of them offer lots of different options of how to get in touch with someone – from winks to multiple-choice questionnaires to different kinds of icebreakers with conversation ideas. Some of the sites have chatrooms and or webcam options. Some of them give you a secure phone number for chatting on the phone without actually having to reveal your phone number. The list goes on. All of it is designed to make your dating experience as fun and easy as possible, while also keeping it safe and secure for you to use.
4. The best paid sites are usually better designed and easier to use. There’s really nothing more to say to that.
5. Last but not least – paid sites give you an opportunity to actually give something back for other people’s hard work. Most paid sites have an army of dedicated people behind them, making your dating experience fun and safe. You want to reward their hard work, for in a way what they do, is most noble – they help you find true love. Surely that’s worth some of your hard-earned money?
Here’s the current Match.com subscription prices (updated April 2011).
1 month Match membership – £29.99
3 month Match membership – £59.97 (33% off)
6 month Match membership – £77.94 (56% off)
Match.com has now replaced their ‘Make Love Happen’ 6 months free guarantee with a big price drop on their 6 month subscription price. You can now get a full 6 month Match subscription for only £12.99 a month making it one of the best offers around.
Why bother paying for a dating site subscription when there are free alternatives? It would be great if the best dating sites were all completely free but in our experience of testing dozens of sites over the years we’ve had a much better quality experience at the best of the paid sites compared to the best of the free dating sites.
Why is that? Well, we’ve discovered for ourselves that the best online dating sites (see our online dating site reviews page for our top choices) are the places where people are genuinely searching to finda match rather than something more fleeting. The financial commitment required for the paid sites may encourage members to invest much more of themselves into their profiles, pictures and descriptions. On the flip side wee found the profiles on the free dating sites are often incomplete, rushed and attract more spam and fake profiles rather than their paid counterparts.
Match.com is one of the most (if not the most) popular dating sites in the UK so if you’re going to invest your hard earned cash into subscribing then you’re making a wise choice by going to the site with the highest number of quality members.
Match or eHarmony, eHarmony or Match? In the short history of online dating, this is the age-old question.
Amongst subscription based online dating websites eHarmony and Match are the true heavyweights – the most popular sites out there, attracting the most visitors and signed up members.
They rate equally high (though Match just shaded it) – check out our Match.com review and eHarmony Review to get the full lowdown – they both have their strong points and their major success stories.
But us online daters know that a good dating website doesn’t usually come cheap. We don’t expect the very best sites to be free – after all, they have invested a lot of time and money to make their sites as good as they are and we don’t mind paying a little extra for a quality experience. But at the same time it’s also clear that not many of us can afford to have a profile on both eHarmony and Match.com.
So which site do we prefer?
We often get asked here at the Online Dating Help towers which site we prefer and what would we recommend to future online daters out there: Match or eHarmony? There is no easy answer as it really depends on what kind of online dating experience you are looking for and what is it that you like or dislike when you are wandering around in the internet dating world.
One thing is for sure about both of these sites – match and eHarmony are trusted worldwide brands so you don’t have to worry about being ripped off. The fake profiles that are so prevalent on other dating sites are largely absent on Match and eHarmony. Reason being that the profiles and photos here are manually checked for approval before appearing on each site. We also found there was less timewasters than most other sites with more members looking for genuine connections. Both sites have dedicated a lot of time to work out a system that lets you find compatible matches for you. So that’s what both sites share. But how do they differ?
First, let’s talk about creating a profile
With eHarmony there’s a fair amount of questions and boxes to tick, you get to come up with a lot of stuff yourself as well as fill in a variety of multiple choice questions. eHarmony prides itself in taking into account 29 different dimensions and character traits in its online profile creating questionnaire, and it’s all been based on extensive scientific research. There is a lot of emphasis on your thoughts, feelings and ideas on various subjects and the things that are important to you.
In Match the approach is pretty much the same, only with perhaps a little more focus on your interests and descriptions as opposed to analysing your soul. The Match.com approach is a little more hands-on and forthright. There is more room for facts rather than feelings, for direct opinions rather than musing thoughts.
So, the verdict: if you’re a straightforward fact-based person, choose Match. If you want to talk more about your ideas and feelings, go for eHarmony.
How eHarmony works
Now, once you’ve created your profile, let’s see what’s on offer. The search feature is where the major differences between the two sites occur.
eHarmony doesn’t have a regular search. That means you won’t have much browsing to do – you can’t go through hundreds of profiles every day, comparing, choosing and picking out the favourites. eHarmony actually does all of that for you, based on what you said in your personality test and profile – which is why it is so important to answer those initial questions honestly to give a true reflection of who you are in the first place. You don’t actually get to see most of the other users’ profiles. Every day eHarmony will send you a bunch of matches that the system has carefully selected and picked for you, thus saving you the trouble and time. It is great for that surprise element to see who’s going to turn up in your matches list each day and we were impressed that the matches didn’t appear to be randomly selected but often seemed to fit into the kind of people we might be interested in. If you like the idea of a matchmaker working on your behalf to bring eligible matches to you then you’ll probably be a good fit with eHarmony. However, if you don’t really know what it is that you’re looking for or if you like to do some window-shopping along the way, you might find eHarmony’s approach a little restricting.
How Match.com works
Match on the other hand has a huge and extensive search feature attached to its dating system. It is easy to use and you have loads of options where you can either narrow your search down to very specific details or just perform it with one simple quick click to see who’s nearest you and when they were last online. You can search for people according to what you are looking for as well as turn it around and try to find people who are out there looking for someone like you. You can save your search criteria and thus keep performing the same search every time you feel like it, you can remove profiles from the search results that you don’t consider to be useful for you, etc. You have a vast array of options and you can spend your time as you like and spend hours doing it. Rest assured, you will get a lot of results, no matter where you live in UK but obviously the bigger cities are where you’ll be most spoilt for choice.
So, in a nutshell: if you don’t have a lot of time to spare and you’re clear on what you want, choose eHarmony. If on the other hand, you’re out there to look around, get a feel for the whole internet dating thing, perhaps flirt a little here and there – Match is definitely the better place for you.
Winking, icebreakers and good old email
Once you’ve found who you’re looking for, you’ll want to establish some contact with your match. So what are the best ways of doing that and how will either website help you? eHarmony for one is all about helping you to establish that contact. There are several little features that aid you in contacting your match – everything from an icebreaker question to establishing guided communication to sending an email. We agree, maybe it sounds a little bit like they’re trying to babysit you too much but at the same time, we found that narrowing the choices down can save you a considerable amount of time. It happens too often that you start emailing with someone and then discover after a few weeks that your ideas differ greatly and you don’t actually share as much as you might have first thought. But by that time it seems rude and insensitive to just cut him/her off, so you just keep struggling on. Well, with eHarmony’s guided communication you won’t have that problem – there’s a good chance that after the few first steps whether the fundamental characteristics match or not.
Match is pretty basic when it comes to helping you with your communication. Sure, there’s ‘winking’ – which effectively lets the other person know that you like what you see – but other than that there’s just plain old-fashioned email (that takes place within the Match website). Again, this is more proof that Match is a much more hands-on site, where you get to do all the work yourself, but also get to have all the fun associated with it.
Our conclusion
Therefore – if your time is limited and/or you’ve always found it a little difficult to strike up a conversation, eHarmony is the right place for you. If on the other hand you’re an explorer type, go for Match instead.
So, there you go – these are the main points, pros and cons of those two extremely popular websites. If you’re still unsure, why don’t you sign up to either (or both) of them and get a feel for yourself. However, as most paid sites Match and eHarmony don’t have a lot of options for unpaid members – you can create your profile and that’s pretty much it, you can look but can’t communicate. But even creating yours and getting a glimpse of your first matches might help to point you in the right direction.
Whichever one you choose, we wish you the best of luck. Have fun!
Friends Reunited Dating don’t give out too many discount codes over the year so we’re excited to be able to offer you a 30% off voucher!
Just copy and paste the Friends Reunited Dating discount code below, click on the link to Friends Reunited Dating, complete the fast registration process, then click on “subscribe” link on the top right of the page and you’ll find a box to enter your code on the subscription page.
Friends Reunited Dating promotion code: FLOWER14 (expires February 15th, 2011)
If you use the Friends Reunited Dating voucher above you’ll only be charged £5.78 a month if you go for the 6 month subscription with 30% off!
Here’s how much you’ll save with each pricing plan: 30% off 6 month subscription – Usually £49.50, only £34.65 using FLOWER14 code. 20% off 3 month subscription – Usually £34.50, only £27.60 using FLOWER14 code. 10% off 1 month subscription – Usually £18.50, only £16.65 using FLOWER14 code.
Starting today and running right through Tuesday 15th of February eHarmony are hosting a massive Free Communication Promotion where you can communicate with other eHarmony members for absolutely nothing without being a paid member yourself.
eHarmony promotions usually last for a single weekend so to get 15 days for free is pretty much unheard of. It certainly puts the odds in your favour of finding someone that takes your fancy, striking up a conversation and who know, maybe even arranging to meet for a coffee? Whatever happens you literally got nothing to lose over the next two weeks while the eHarmony valentine’s promotion is running!
If you enjoy your two weeks free and want to stay on the site longer then you can find out how much eHarmony costs in our previous blog post.
We’re delighted to offer you a money saving discount code for eHarmony’s UK site that gives you the offer of three months for the price of two!
Copy and paste the eHarmony discount code below, click on the link to eHarmony, complete the simple registration and personality profile then click on ‘subscribe now’ and you’ll find a text box where you can enter the eHarmony code.
eHarmony promotion code: EHJAN1 (expires February 14th, 2011)
If you use the eHarmony voucher above you’ll only be charged £49.90 for a full 3 month subscription, in other words that’s just £16.63 a month!
Without the code a standard one month eHarmony subscription is currently £34.95 and the 3 month membership price is £74.85 so you’ll be saving around £25, money you can save towards that first date perhaps. Find out the current details of eHarmony Membership prices here.
For our most up to the minute thoughts on the eHarmony UK dating site check out our eHarmony UK Review
A full 6 months at arguably the UK's best dating site for under £12.99 a month (instead of £29.99 a month) when you subscribe for 6 months (£77.94). Read our match.com review to see why we gave the site our highest ever score of 90%. Sign up at match.com
It’s not often that a dating site comes along that looks like it has something positive and valuable to add to an already crowded marketplace. Crazy Like You is one of those rare sites that fills a genuine gap and is growing in popularity. So we’d like to hand the rest of this blog post over to Morten to introduce his new website and explain why he decided to start it. Over to Morten…
