Senior Dating Network - Membership Scam
I signed up to the website "Senior Dating Network" - started to get a few views on my profile and pretty quickly this changed to multiple messages. I looked through all the profiles (in New Zealand) and found about 50 I thought were interesting for me. I sent likes (actually around 70 in the end) and about 20 responded. With a message. You can't read the message, of course unless you become a "VIP Member". I thought about this for a few days, should I or shouldn't I join?
I actually had 4 messages from profiles giving me gmail addresses to communicate off site - these I thought were clearly scammers - but all of them were actually VIP account holders. So the company that owns the site definitely knows about them (if they are not part of the same company). As I held off joining, I kept getting a slow trickle of new messages. In the end about 30 "members" responded.
I decided to become a member on the shortest membership which was 1 month - maybe it cost around $50 US - not a small sum. I only did this because i could pay through Googlepay. I definitely would not recommend giving Credit Card details to this company/website.
After I became a member I was able to see all the messages and surprising number from different profiles were actually the exact same message.
"Hey there a cycling enthusiast who likes music and dogs. Let's explore together"
"Looking for a gentleman who can make me laugh and share deep conversations".
Looking at the profiles, pictures and the details of each person realistically I think 95% of them are fake. Run by the website operator to entice people in to become VIP members.
I think maybe 10% of the profiles are legitimate, but probably were been abandoned years ago. Mainly because they have the feel of being written by a person and the photos look appropriate.
So basically I liked about 70 "members". Got replies from about 30. With maybe 4 of them sending multiple messages - definitely a way to entice you into joining.
When I saw the messages most are totally generic. But that is what happens when you start out messaging someone. I replied but then the second messages were also totally generic hardly referencing anything I said or asked.
Overall I think the whole website is a scam - they are basically just trying to draw you in to pay for the membership. There maybe a few real members - but the main business here is getting your "membership fees" by using fake profiles.
All I can say is please stay clear. I think my lesson has been learned, don't join a site where you have to pay to read messages.
I think the whole business model here is a "Membership Scam" - you pay for membership and get membership to a website that is honestly empty.