People join dating sites for many reasons, perhaps they have an active social life but are seeking that someone special and are prepared to cast their net a little wider than their local area. Others are lonely, perhaps they have to stay at home to look after children or simply don’t have an active social life. Some will join dating sites because they will meet more people than they would in the local pub.

Whatever the reason for joining a dating site, if you are serious about finding someone special or widening your social circle then get into the forum and chat as a group.

I always recommend that people in the UK, serious about finding a relationship, join niche dating sites specifically for UK members. Niche sites cater to members interests, for example some sites are for country dating, others for dance dating or christian dating, whatever your passion you will find a niche dating site to suit your interests.

Once you have joined a dating site I really recommend you get into the forum and chat as a group. Like any social event, when you meet new people face to face, general conversation and opinions give away a lot about you. People can read your comments and will have a much better idea of whether you would be suited, if you come across as like-minded.

Private messages sent from one member to another tend to ask the usual questions about interests and lifestyle but give away little about your personality and passions. For someone new to online dating private messages can also be a little daunting, what on earth do you say in a first message. Introducing yourself in the forum takes away this awkwardness and you can join in with ongoing discussions.

A forum is the ideal place for others to see what you are really about and someone that is not interested in your profile may see a whole different side to you in the forum.

By joining a niche site you already something in common with other members, that gives everyone something to discuss in the forum. If you join a big site people may not be interested in dance, religion or the countryside so discussions may be very generic and of little interest to you.

Another reason to use the dating site forum is trust, this is particularly important for men. Online dating has such a bad reputation due to the number of scammers and players that join the big worldwide sites and women are very wary these days about who they chat to. By talking in the forum it shows you are who you say you are and not out hunting fresh prey but are talking to people as friends, it shows a lack of desperation too.

Whichever site you choose to join it is a good idea to get active on the site, join in and be sociable rather than just scrolling through profiles looking for people to date. While you wait for that special someone to show up it can be fun making friends on the site, your evenings will be active and by getting invloved with the site you will come across as open and trustworthy.

Here are some tips if you are not sure how to choose a good online dating service. Before joining any site make sure they have an active dating site forum, then join in and become one of the crowd.

If you want to find out about the underhand tactics used by most of the big online dating sites then don’t search the web for reviews or blogs about them … go to their main competitors blog where they are happy to spill the beans about the other guys current underhand tactics and game plan.

The latest episode in this online dating soap opera is on The Paradigm Shift a blog written by Markus Frind, CEO of Plenty of Fish.

Of course I don’t want my websites members to all rush off and join PoF but I have respect for Markus because there is a degree of honesty and transparancy in what he has created (tinged with a little jealousy that I didn’t have his brilliant idea first and then sell when it was at it’s peak).

His post makes for quite intersting reading, not so much for the impending war between PoF and Match.com’s new free site but for the snippets of industry insider tactics found in the post, the comments and reading between the lines.

Markus is announcing the new free website for singles in the USA & Canada, called downtoearth by the owners of Match and of course he offers his opinion.

An example, Markus says:  “I wonder if Match.com will now pay me $7.50 like everyone else for writing about downtoearth”.

What he is referring to here is the fee Match are paying bloggers to mention the new site and provide a link from their blog post, rather than just placing an advert in the sidebar that nobody clicks anyway.

With an industry leader like Match all they need to do is issue a press release (or better yet a rumour) and suddenly the web is awash with their name and links to their new site.

Nothing wrong with that, it is clever marketing but even in the dog eat dog world of online dating sites when you have a name like Match doesn’t paying people to blog about your new site seem just a tad sleazy?! Surely if you believe in your new site and have the clout of Match then good reviews would simply follow naturally.

Match would have us believe they are re-inventing the wheel with this new site.

On the home page of this new site it says “No Married People Allowed” … gosh that will keep them out then! (where’s my rolls eyes smiley when I need it?!).

It goes on to say: “RealRatings are all about proving a person is who they say they are, not how attractive some fake pictures are.” Ahem, so I join up with 10 different email addresses and get my alter ego’s to “rate” that I am who I say I am … no honestly I AM Sandra Bullock.

Again from their home page: ” If you hit a spot filled with frauds and cheaters, that’s exactly what you are likely to find.” Perhaps they missed the point … the free sites are more often than not where the frauds and cheaters hang out!!

Their home page is awash with comments to make you trust that site and yet I didn’t read anything on the site that tells you almost every review or comment you will read on the web about the site is actually paid for by them. Trust only seems to need to work one way.

Scroll down the page to the partners link and take a look who their partners are … not a free dating website in sight. Aren’t you just a little curious what’s in it for the partners?

At times watching the big fish in the online dating world is akin to watching a casino card dealer. Members from free sites are shuffled around to the paid ones and sites affiliate and sell your profile, partnerships are created to share out the booty and on and on it goes. I’m surprised online daters aren’t too dizzy to actually get on with speaking to each other.

You have to hand it to Match, they have a brilliant marketing team. Their adverts are memorable and funny, their marketing guys and gals keep coming up with new ways to beat the system and they are market leaders when it comes to getting cash out of their members.

At this point I must confess I am no great fan of Match.com, a number of years ago I fell foul of their ‘oops you stopped paying us because nobody was contacting you but suddenly these men in your area are desperate to chat with you’ tactic and being gullible I got the credit card out again (more than once I am ashamed to admit).

Of course once I paid to rejoin the nearest man to me was still 300 miles away and  the ones desperate to chat to me just happened to delete their profiles that day!!

Perhaps this is why these people are millionaires and I am never going to be, I just don’t have that ruthless streak that lets me play these marketing games with something as precious as peoples love lives. I am old fashioned, I believe in saying this is what you pay, this is what you get, there are no guarantees but we will help you any way we can.

My opinion, through experience, has always been that anyone serious about online dating should use a niche dating site in their own country (look for ones with no adverts, no affiliates and no partners, just an honest little site with like-minded people) but if you are just after a bit of online dating fun then join a big free dating site.

Industry statitics show that a vast majority of people that meet a long term partner online meet someone with shared interests within quite a small radius of their home town. It might be fun to chat to people on the other side of the world but very few people meet up or end up in long term relationships.

We also know that when people first start internet dating they go to the free sites and have a bit of fun but once they get serious about their search they usually migrate to niche paid sites, in an attempt to avoid the frauds and cheaters.

Most inexperienced online daters will begin with free online dating sites but it won’t take long before they begin to see the drawbacks and either give up with online dating or turn to paid dating sites.

If you are considering online dating then read my free or paid online dating article to help you decide what’s best for you.

Here are the top 5 reasons I believe you should think twice before using free online dating sites, particulalry if you are looking for a real relationship:

1. Conmen and Scam Artists

We’ve all read about those stupid people that get conned out of thousands by African conmen posing as the love of their life …. but are they stupid? Love or the prospect of love can do strange things to you, people that are ordinarily very sensible have been conned by these people time and time again. Free sites are where they are most active because they don’t have to worry about providing personal information or payment and the site isn’t interested in who signs up for membership.

2. Online Players

Do you know how to spot an online dating player? These are not people that aspire to be serial daters adding the notches to their bedposts, they are hunters that look for vulnerable prey on dating websites. They join many dating sites to widen their chances of finding people to play their game with. Free sites are perfect for them because they are full of inexperienced online daters, often newly out of a relationship and vulnerable to their form of “romancing”. In order to maintain their clean ‘reputation’ they stick to large free sites where word will not get passed around so easily.

3. In Life You Get What You Pay For

Free dating sites want advertising revenue, they want clicks. Every time you click an advert on their site they get paid, the more members they have the more people click adverts and the more companies are willing to pay to advertise on their website. Just try telling the owners that someone has been sending you offensive emails and see how long it takes them to respond to you, let alone take any action against the offender. As far as services and support go, if you pay nothing then guess what you get in return?

4. Seriously Looking?

Free sites are great if you are young and just looking for some fun, they are full of people that just want to chat (including lots of married people looking to spice up their life with some internet time) or date casually. People that are seriously looking for a relationship take their time to choose sites and will usually opt for paid sites, not just join free sites to keep their options as open as possible.

5. What Does Free Mean?

It must be 100% free, it is plastered all over the front page of the website, they have those red sale type stickers with Free to join all over the place. How many people actually read the smallprint … go on admit you don’t do you! That is what they count on, you google free dating and most of the sites you will find will be free to join, so you click to the site and see pictures of people you would love to meet and before you know it you have signed up. You start getting messages but as soon as you press the reply button you get that “you must be a premium/paid/full member to reply” message. There are some genuinely free sites out there but for those see 1-3 above.

So you are ready to date again and want to get out and meet as many people as possible to widen your options. Stop and think, do you really want to spend 6 months chatting to someone at the other side of the world with no hope of ever practically meeting?

I would suggest spending time finding a niche dating site that caters for your interests and whose service is only provided to your country. Why? Because if it’s only for your country the site will take steps to keep out the scammers and conmen from other continents.

Finding a niche site (eg countryside, horse riding, golfing, dancing, music, etc) means you will meet like minded people who share your interests.

All good paid dating sites offer either a free trial period or “free to look” membership, that way you can see how many people are in your area and if their profiles interest you before you pay for membership.

The simple answer is “Yes, it does work if you are realistic”, well that was a short post, so I am of to the gym (as if).

However, many people approach online dating with unrealistic expectations and therefore fail to find anyone to have a relationship with. Advertising for online dating sites adds to the unrealistic mental images of online dating.

Think about Match.com and their ‘meet someone in 6 months or you get 6 months free’ guarantee …. wow their site must have a thousand Mr Right’s just for me, woopee!!

The trouble is there is nothing in their terms of use to explain what “meet someone” actually means and the average person will assume it means meet someone you are compatible with and can date long term but the cynic in me doubts that is their meaning.

This kind of advertising leads us into a false sense of reality and anyone joining an online dating site for the first time will be rather disappointed when Mr/Miss Right fails to appear in the first 2 dates.

Online dating takes time and effort, you have to learn how to read between the lines of dating profiles, recognise red flags and usually have a few unsuccessful dates before anyone right for you appears.

Just because someone seems perfect for you online or on the telephone doesn’t mean there will be any chemistry between you.

Take time and keep your expectations low, have fun and make some new friends online but don’t expect that someone special to just fall out of the cyber sky in the first week.

One of my most repeated tips for online dating is to find a site with like-minded people, that way you already share some interests with the other members. If you live in Germany and love skydiving then look for a site based in Germany that specialises in extreme sport enthusiasts. If you live in UK and love the countryside then join a rural online dating site.

Online dating is not rocket science, just choose the right site, chat to lots of people and don’t expect too much too soon.

It was about three years ago, having spent the previous few years alone, that I stumbled upon a dating site while googling some un-remembered and probably weird subject to ease my boredom! It was the ‘Free to join’ and ‘Guaranteed partner within 6 months’ type of statements that had me completing the profile questionnaire with a growing sense of excitement…

My first major lesson was that ‘Free Membership’ was just that… free membership!! It wasn’t free to contact anyone though, or reply to a message or to even participate in the forums! I wasn’t against paying… it was just the misleading banners they used to draw me in that I took offence to! So off I went to find a dating site that that was more suited to my needs.

Now it was time to tackle the profile… sooo many questions and my brain decides right then to have a wee nap and my literary masterpiece becomes nothing more than… “Hi! I’m single. I don’t want to be single. I’m looking for a partner. I’m very interesting. Can you use a washing Machine?”

And then the ‘uploading photos’ part appears and I’m gripped with a fear… HEEEEEELP! If I was going to meet this immensely beautiful woman and it wasn’t going to cost me a penny… then these odd photos that I had littered around my desktop were suddenly quite important! OMG! What pictures do I upload??
Er… this one makes me look totally bald but reasonably muscly!
Ooooh! that one with a false but friendly smile might just do it!
er.. erm…. or I could just Google ‘male model, a quick cut’n'paste and hey presto I’m suddenly gorgeous!

And what the hell am I supposed to put in these boxes that are asking me all about my current lifestyle? I’m bored stiff, feel incredibly lonely and if I could find a life I’d be more than willing to give it some style!

Although I’d say that I was a streetwise type of guy, I have to admit that Computer Dating became an eye-opener! This was a totally different ball-game… a minefield of unexpected stuff like fake-profiles, Scammers and ‘THE MODS’!! What is going on with these weird Moderator People? or should I say PC Police? lol I look at my previous posts sometimes and wonder did I really make a typo like ‘Feck it’? *makes a mental note to replace spell-checker!!

Once over the  hurdles and some valuable lessons had been learnt, it was time for me to find this gorgeous girl who was out in cyberland… I conducted a search for all girls aged between 19 and 20, photo a must and profile must contain words like ‘gagging for it’! My search turned up nothing and I scratched my head in bewilderment… maybe I was being to fussy and tried expanding the age range from 19 to 21!

I tried mailing women who had a pretty face or had saucy profiles but rarely got a reply and the ones I did get were strangely suggesting I needed a personality transplant! I was close to giving up but luckily I had a sudden brain-wave… I’d post something in the forums! Jeeze.. Scary times!! I posted a ‘Hello, I’m new’ kind of thread and very quickly found myself replying to peoples posts! It was awesome and I was amazed at how quickly I made friends… I had been trying too hard, just expecting a female to be attracted to my pic or profile rather than my personality!

Once I had finally got talking to a nice girl, it became time for my next hurdle… THE MEET! Now that really was terrifying! I was aware that I had used only the best possible photos for my profile and that on a very good day I may look a wee bit like them! I headed off to Edinburgh Station feeling sick! This girl was gorgeous, a proper stunner and she was going to be sooo disappointed in me! Why was I putting myself through this hell? Rejection just has to be one of the worst emotions I deal with and here I was setting myself up for a huge kick in the nuts!

I didn’t notice her when all the passengers came teaming from the carriages and nearly had a heart attack when this guy came up to me and announced that he was Shirley! It was only when he spoke that I noticed he had a very high voice… OK maybe it was a female but the facial hair? and where did the lovely white teeth go? In fact this just wasn’t the girl I had seen in the pics! I had no choice but to take her back to mine where we spent a very uncomfortable 3 days in separate bedrooms. I did go on to meet a lovely girl but it was a long-distance relationship and unfortunately didn’t work out after 9 months.

Here’s a few lessons I learnt while using dating sites…

1.  My profile had ‘desperate’ written all over it.
2.  Photo’s are just a rough guide to a persons appearance.
3.  Scammers want to have lots of sexy-time with me.
4.  Mods are from another planet.
5.  MSN/Cam-chat before meeting.
6.  Don’t assume nothing.
7.  Free is not always free.
8.  On first date… Do not arrange for one to stay at the others house.
9.  Use recent photos.
10. Have fun and use the forums.

So to cap it all… It took me a while to find a site that suited me, the forums became a huge help in my search for both friendships and love and most importantly I acquired a whole new section of my life that I am very grateful for! I’ve been a member with Country Couples since January 08 and I’ve yet to find another site that is as friendly and welcoming.

Xander

Some of these members have been conned out of up to £9,500 in their attempts to find a partner to love.

Living in a remote rural area of the UK I know it can be difficult and frustrating to find a long term relationship, the local village pub tends not to have a variety of new faces very often, if ever and many turn to the internet to find that special someone.

It may seem to city dwellers that you would have to be simply daft or incredibly desperate to pay so much money to find love but in reality most country folk aren’t look for casual dates, they want a lifetime partner.

The online dating agency, Rural Network based in Queensland, used the tagline “Bringing the Country Together” however many of their profiles were simply fakes produced by their staff.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which has been looking into the agency for the past three years, which does beg the question how did they get away with it for so long?

One of the most obvious tricks used is the email telling you someone suitable wants to communicate with you but of course you have to pay an extra fee to get in touch with them.

They also charged huge administration fees, in the region of £2000 for a two year membership. Don’t forget the service fees and the membership upgrade fees.

In the Times Online Anne Barrowclough in Sydney recounts one victims tale:

“I saw their webpage and put my details on there and I was signed up at their most basic membership. Over the next few weeks they contacted me numerous times telling me about different members I could meet, but only if I upgraded my membership each time. They also changed the story of what I was paying for.

Over the next few months he shelled out A$20,000.”

The Rural Network dating agency has been ordered to repay A$120,000 to it’s victims and has to write to all new customers about their “misleading and deceptive conduct” ….. like that was ever going to happen and the agency is back in court for not doing so.

Justice Jeffrey Spender failed to close the website down but said the agency’s conduct was “not only serious but calculated and quite callous” and imposed a 7 year restriction on their business practices.

However, until someone takes a real stand against these con artists online dating will always be a minefield.

Rural Network is still in operation with a site called Chances Consulting and the case is not due in court again until September.

I say this again and again, many online dating agencies fake profiles.It is so tempting to go to the ones that advertise thousands of members rather than ones with just hundreds in your area but the small ones are much more likely to have genuine like-minded people and when you do the maths your chances are increased on the smaller sites of actually meeting a good match.

My rural and countryside dating website is only for the UK but you can see that it has a clear pricing policy and the membership numbers, being a new site, are quite small. I could have paid $100 to have 500 fake profiles produced but chose not to con people ….. look for genuine sites that offer a good service for a reasonable price.

When you look for an online dating site follow these simple rules:

1. Choose one with clearly set out pricing policies.

2. Make sure they have a forum or chatroom, are you speaking to actual human beings?

3. Check out profiles before you sign up … do they sound too good to be true?

4. If you cancel your membership and suddenly get messages saying people want to communicate with you but you must rejoin and pay ….. delete them.

5. As soon as you join send messages to a few members asking how they like the site, not just the opposite sex.