Plentyoffish in paid upgrade shocker!

March 20th, 2009

OK, maybe it’s not so shocking to most people, but Plentyoffish made its name by advocating 100% free dating. Now you can pay to get a special “badge of honour” that supposedly marks you as a “serious dater”.

Most people who are dating online will have come across Plentyoffish, but, frankly, I am yet to personally hear anything particularly good about the experience. I’m sure some people do well there, but on the whole it’s a scammer and time-waster magnet, mostly because it’s big and free (which is also the reason why most people end up trying it sooner or later).

Will the new system of charging a fee (quite a small one) to give members a gold badge and highlight their profile solve this? I doubt it. Firstly, I doubt it would make as much difference to people’s dating experience as the site claims. Would someone paying a token amount on a free site to have their profile highlighted in gold make more of an impression on you than someone dating on a more exclusive (or expensive) site to begin with? Also, in the unlikely case that the system takes off and is actually seen as a sign of “quality” (as opposed to the sign of quality which is dating on a different site altogether, with proactive profile moderation, for example), the scammers will be quick to whip out their cloned credit cards and join the party, making a mockery of the whole thing.

Personally, I’d still advise going somewhere else for your free dating. Try OKCupid.com (but only if you’re willing to spend time improving your matches) or Metrodate.com which used to be a pay site and now offers 100% free dating.

Related posts:

1. Plentyoffish in the UK

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