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eHarmony is possibly the most popular dating site around, but their history of lackluster customer service and profile quality have given them a bad online reputation.
Although eHarmony.com does a thorough job when it comes to matching up personality types, many of those personality types belong to people who no longer use the dating site. The site claims to have over 33 million members in 191 countries and also claims to be responsible for 542 marriages every day, but their numbers seem to be a bit fluffed.
eHarmony will work well for you if you are patient, willing to spend a significant amount of money, and won't get frustrated with receiving inactive profile matches. Using its personality questionnaire, eHarmony uses a scientific and psychological approach to matchmaking; if that sounds appealing to you, eHarmony might be a good option. If the technical approach to dating sounds good, also check out Chemistry.com.
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Transparency |
1.0 / 2.5 |
eHarmony.com is very straightforward in some ways and very shady in other ways. eHarmony makes their pricing structure easy to find, but only after you sign up and go through their lengthy questionnaire first. It's easy to understand their membership system, although they make you think a free account will give you access to more than it really does. With a free membership, you will only get limited access to profiles you've been matched with, and you can't see their pictures or communicate with them. Once you have signed up with eHarmony and have taken your personality questionnaire, their prices will be hard to avoid. Just click "Subscription" wherever you see the link and you will be able to view their pricing structure, and the prices of their extra features.
eHarmony does not provide contact information on their website. They do not provide an email address or phone number anywhere on their website for customers to contact them with. When you click a link to contact someone, it simply directs you to the FAQ section. eHarmony.com has fallen into the same pattern that many other massive online dating sites have; instead of posting contact information to answer questions, they just post an FAQ section that may or may not answer the questions for them. When reading through discussion forums regarding eHarmony, it seems that the dating site purposefully avoids contact with its customers. When eHarmony users have trouble with the site, their matches, or their accounts, they cannot get in contact with anyone from eHarmony.
Another problem with transparency at eHarmony.com is the lack of freedom you have to browse through available singles. Instead of providing a comprehensive search engine to let users browse singles they're interested in, eHarmony chooses all of the matches for them. eHarmony concludes that once you have filled out your personal profile and personality questionnaire, they can do the rest of the work for you.
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Reliablity |
2.0 / 2.5 |
On paper, eHarmony seems like a very reliable marriage service and dating site. Unfortunately, we also see a lot of random red flags. For example, eHarmony holds an "A+" with the Better Business Bureau. That's great, but you can also consider that out of 39 user reviews of eHarmony posted on the Better Business Bureau website, the dating site averaged one out of five stars. That is terrible, and we did not see a review of the site higher than three out of five. Also, eHarmony's BBB profile shows that they have dealt with 1,120 complaints, over half of which were resolved with refunds. Although eHarmony deals with the complaints that arise, they certainly have to deal with a lot of them. Other online forums and websites display comments from eHarmony users that were wrongfully charged automatic monthly fees, couldn't get in contact with anyone from the company, and had to seek assistance in solving the problems.
eHarmony.com posts testimonials and success stories from past members and gives you a good perspective on the company. However, we read in at least one forum post that an actor was hired to shoot a commercial as an eHarmony "success story," making us reconsider the legitimacy of their testimonials in the first place. eHarmony also posts their privacy policies clearly on their website. If and when you decide to pay for a membership with eHarmony, your credit card information will be secure. EHarmony is part of the TRUSTe privacy program and features SSL security.
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Quality |
1.5 / 2.5 |
Again, eHarmony has very high quality in some areas and very low quality in others. When it comes to profile building and providing extra online dating features and tools, eHarmony is one of the best. They provide a very comprehensive personality questionnaire right when you sign up. Actually, you have no choice but to take the questionnaire. It took us over 30 minutes to complete it, but you can save it and continue it at another time if you can't finish it in one sitting. Once you have finished your questionnaire, you will also get the opportunity to fill out your personal profile. Instead of checking off general personality traits, you will get to type out descriptions of who you are, what you like, and exactly what you are looking for. Extra features at eHarmony include things like "Secure Call," allowing you to talk to other singles on the phone without giving out your phone number, and "Profile Advisor" which will help you create the best profile you can. eHarmony also provides a free mobile application to use on your smart phone or tablet PC. Like Zoosk, you can even sign in to eHarmony with your Facebook account. eHarmony also provides a completely free dating advice website, but you can access that without even signing up for eHarmony. Find it here: http://www.advice.eharmony.com.
eHarmony does not feature a search engine, so you cannot search through profiles of single men and women who are members of the dating site. In today's world of online dating, it seems like a major flaw to ignore this feature. Apparently eHarmony has so much confidence in their matchmaking system they don't feel the need to let you search for your own matches. Unfortunately, the internet is home to hundreds, probably thousands of complaints about the eHarmony's matching system. The most common problem we read is that people are sent "new" matches showing them people who are no longer active on eHarmony. Paying members also complain about receiving matches showing them members who have free accounts and can barely do anything on the website. If eHarmony did a better job of cleaning up their profile database and correctly matching its users, it would not have such a massive amount of criticism online. As we've said before, sites that offer both free and paid memberships run into problems as time goes by. eHarmony also loses some points due to their complete lack of customer service. One of the two major complaints we found about eHarmony, the dating site does not find it necessary to provide live, human customer support for its clients. As we mentioned above, the site does not post any phone numbers or email addresses through which to contact them. If you have a problem with the site, you will need to consult their FAQ section.
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Cost |
1.5 / 2.5 |
The cost to use eHarmony is very high. Although you will be matched through a proven compatibility matching method, we aren't sure it's worth the cost. As we said, many people are matched with profiles that are inactive or free. Either way, the results are almost always negative in those cases. Users who have free accounts can barely use the site, and getting matched with inactive profiles is pointless.
eHarmony costs $323.40 for a one-year membership. For a six-month membership, they will charge you $209.70. You can compare that to Zoosk, a more casual but just as comprehensive website, that charges $74.95 for a six-month membership. For a three-month membership at eHarmony, they will charge you $137.85. We would probably suggest you try eHarmony if they included their best extra features in the membership price, but they unfortunately do not. Something like the "Secure Call" feature will add another $5.95 to your monthly bill.
For what you will get, eHarmony does not seem worth the cost of membership. Not only does the dating site offer no customer support or contact information, but they have over 1,100 complaints on BBB.org and are notorious for avoiding communication with its members. With no search engine and limited matches, take your online dating money and spend it elsewhere.
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Total Score |
6.0 / 10 |
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