The Five Top Complaints About Match.com

Match.com has by far, like 30%, far more member complaints than the next runner up for bad consumer karma, eHarmony. They've been around since the late 1990s when they bought out AOL's massively successful "Love on AOL" database, so you'd think they would have things figured out by now.

But their billing and erroneous rebilling and cancellation and refund policies are worse than any other dating site online. We compiled our data about Match much like we did our study on eHarmony from the Consumer Affairs website: 2,364 complaints updated as of May 2, 2017.

We cataloged the entries into the top 5 complaints and 3/4 of the reviews had something to do with the faulty, misleading sign up system, the deceptive refund policy, the hidden cancellation policy and the default, gotta-dig-through-the-layers-to-cancel auto-renewal system. We have a blog on how to avoid the auto-renewal system if you are intent on trying to sidestep the trip wires and pitfalls of Match's subscriber page. We have an excerpt from it below.

How to Avoid Match.com's Auto-Renewal Trap

After you choose your plan under the Bundled or the Basic options, pay and sign in, go to your "Settings", click on "Change/Cancel Membership" and cancel. That's right, cancel. Their terms are no refunds. But you will be able to "enjoy your match experience" until the day your subscription expires, so your account will be good to go for the 3, 6 or 9 months from the day of sign up. When you begin your cancellation process, be sure to follow the prompts carefully as Match will try to trip you up along the way and get you to cancel your cancellation. The last dialogue window will ask you why you're leaving and you can say anything you want, but I just told them I don't like their auto-renewal system.

Be sure to check your email for a cancellation confirmation from Match. Print it out and keep it for proof.

You will then be taken to a page with your cancellation information and the date when your subscription expires. Just to ensure against any other curfuffles, take a screen shot or print the page out. When your subscription is getting close to expiring, Match will start an email spamming frenzy with links back to the site to renew your membership. If you choose to let it expire, you will then receive a ton of emails from Match after a few days stating such things as "Someone was looking at your profile today" or "You have new email!" Baiting you to join back up. It makes me think they have a few, or a few thousand, fake profiles they keep on hand and trot them out to hit your profile after you have abandoned it for the deserted island that it can be after several frustrating months. You may also receive a 10-20% discount on your renewal if you do the right thing and hold out for 5-7 days.