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While SinglesNet.com online dating could be considered a free dating service, the site is cleverly designed to limit you and really doesn't offer much for free in the long run.
Yes, you can technically send messages and chat for free – but only with featured members who are paying to be featured. This means the amount of people you can contact versus the amount of people registered is much, much lower. We will get more into that later.
SinglesNet.com provides very little customer support, offers a horribly simple search engine, and does not offer much in unique features. We would definitely advise you to avoid SinglesNet as a free dating site, but it might prove helpful if you pay to become a featured member.
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Transparency |
1.0 / 2.5 |
SinglesNet only received points in the transparency category because it provides contact information, except a phone number, and allows you to search and view profiles for free. Other than that, they are not straightforward, plus they fail to post a person's name to represent their own site.
The prices at SinglesNet.com are only easy to find once you have signed up. Before you sign up for your free account, SinglesNet presents itself as a free dating site. They also avoid explaining the full extent of the services they offer, but for a specific reason.
Once you sign up at SinglesNet and search through the profiles, you will notice that some of them are "Featured." At most dating sites, this just means their profiles will show up highlighted, and will appear first in other members' search results. At SinglesNet, being a "Featured Member" means much more. At SinglesNet, members who are not featured can only contact featured members. In other words, if you don't pay for a featured account, you can only contact people who do. This means that you cannot contact any of the SinglesNet members who do not pay to be featured members.
What this means is you basically have to pay to become a featured member in order to find success at SinglesNet. Otherwise, you will be stuck sifting through the low number of featured profiles, cutting the amount of potential matches in half, at best. Probably less than one fourth of the members at SinglesNet are featured. This limitation applies to both email and instant messaging.
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Reliablity |
1.0 / 2.5 |
SinglesNet gains a point for posting their privacy policies clearly and for using third-party security to offer secure payment options. But again, SinglesNet fails to meet the MarriageServices.org standard, this time for a lack of reliability.
We will start with their Better Business Bureau grade: F. SinglesNet used to be a BBB.org accredited website, but that simply means they paid a fee to the BBB in order to be seen as "accredited." To become accredited, all you need to do is pay the fee and provide information on your business. Because their accreditation ran out (even though it still says BBB accredited on SinglesNet.com), the BBB directs you to the regular SinglesNet BBB page, where their grade of "F" is displayed. Out of just 19 official complaints, nine of them were administratively closed. Only ten of them were resolved. By the way, thirteen of those complaints involved billing.
This brings us to the next issue: online complaints. Whether you find them about billing, scams, or the many useless or dead profiles on the site, there is no lack of complaints online regarding SinglesNet.com. The most common complaints we saw online were in regards to the members' misuse of the site, scamming, etc. Take a look for yourself by searching online. SinglesNet.com is also missing any testimonials or history for the company.
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Quality |
0.5 / 2.5 |
This is the lowest scoring section for SinglesNet.com: Quality. Receiving points for just one out of the five quality categories, SinglesNet does not provide you with enough features and not enough quality in the features they do offer.
First of all, the search engine is terrible. Instead of giving you a ton of options so you can search through the profiles in your own personalized way, SinglesNet only gives you four search criteria: basic age range (not specific ages), location, ethnicity, and photos only. Limiting the search engine so much only forces the SinglesNet.com users to look at their "One-to-one" matches, sent to them by SinglesNet. In the end, the search engine isn't important unless you pay to become a featured member, anyways.
SinglesNet does not give you a personalized home page that compiles all of your features, interests, emails, etc. SinglesNet does not offer solid customer support, either. You can only access their telephone support if you are a featured member, so you will be limited to submitting your message into a form. When I inquired through that form about an instant messaging error I was receiving, I immediately received a pre-written email talking about instant messaging in general – not an answer to my question. It didn't even offer me a link to submit another question if the first answer did not solve my problem.
Finally, the site loses quality points due to a lack of extra features. SinglesNet.com does not provide any features unique to itself. It does offer a free, downloadable instant messenger, but other than that, it offers very little. It hosts a small amount of chat rooms and a discussion forum; other than that, there isn't much to do but browse through profiles.
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Cost |
1.5 / 2.5 |
The cost of using SinglesNet is very low, if anything, and is its most appealing feature. Because you can technically use the site's features for free, and communicate with a limited number of members for free, it might be worth a little of your time. It is definitely possible to meet someone you connect with, for free, using SinglesNet.com. It's a small chance, but it exists.
SinglesNet wins points for their affordable featured member cost, its free chat and messaging options, and for providing a lot of payment options. To become a featured member, it costs $90 for 12 months, $50 for 3 months, and $25 for one month. Unfortunately, they hide the charge to become a featured member until you sign up thinking it's a free dating site.
You could potentially meet someone on SinglesNet, but it seems like one big site based on trickery. Before you fork over $90 to become a featured member, browse through the many other dating sites available. Good luck!
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Total Score |
4.0 / 10 |
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