eHarmony won’t let Morgan’s mom join until she proves that she’s really divorced. She tried to join last year, but was rejected because she was only separated for seven years, and not divorced. Now that her divorce is final, she wants to register without spending another hour filling out eHarmony’s “scientifically proven” matching questionnaire.
Morgan writes:
Hello Consumerist. My mother, separated for around 7 years, applied to join eHarmony last year. She took the hour-and-some long questionnaire only to find she was rejected because she hadn’t gotten the divorce yet. Well the divorce was finalized last year, and my mom was interested in joining eHarmony again. She sent them the following message:
To EHarmony
I was rejected when I was separated. Now I’m divorced. How can I change my status without retaking the questionnaire?
Thank you for contacting eHarmony Customer Care.
We’re so happy to hear that you are thinking of using our service. It’s a pleasure to assist you in changing your marital status. Since you are divorced, please reply with the county and state of your divorce proceedings, the name of the judge, and the date your divorce was finalized. We hope you understand that this information is very important in order to protect the integrity of our matching process. Once this information is received, we will be very happy to reset your Relationship Questionnaire for you. You will need to retake the questionnaire so that we can accurately assess your relationship needs and provide matches who are deeply compatible with you.
We look forward to helping you find the love of your life.
Sincerely,
Yan V.
Customer Care
eHarmony
To EHarmony
Wow. Nevermind.
“Wow” is right! I guess those Chemistry.com commercials weren’t exaggerating!
Morgan
Anyone want to date Morgan’s mom?
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Of course, that divorce information is public record. If i learned the mom’s name and around where she lived, i could probably get it in a few minutes at the courthouse.
Providing it is no big deal..
@spanky: Yeah, those ads creep me out too. It appears they are matchmaking based on race, at least partly. I will be shocked the first time I see an interracial couple on one of their commercials.
Anyone remember SNL’s spoof of this called “Me-Harmony?”
[www.nbc.com]
And BOY don’t get me started on their Lord-hating (hating!) ways. No child brides. No forced marriage to my dead brother’s wife. No beating my wives with a cudgel if she doesn’t treat me as The Master of My Domain.
No stoning shrimp-eaters?! What’s the world coming to?
I tried eharmony once. I got the 3 month subscription. In those three months, they sent me about a total of maybe 15-20 matches. Of them, I found about three to be attractive based on their pictures and texts. Their double-blind matching system requires a back-and-forth multiple choice questionnaire before entering open communication. Of 5 matches that began the questionnairre process, 2 made it past round 1 and only one made it through all three starges, after which we’re allowed to enter ‘open communication.’ But that was as far as it ever went. I never received a reply to the open communication.
Here’s the thing, using other sites, I actually *have* met some pretty decent women. I have paid for and used yahoo and match in the past, and out of curiosity, I registered (though never subscribed to) chemistry.com. Yahoo seems to be the most honest, or at least I never felt like I was being scammed there. The majority of messages sent out receive either no response or rejection, but I’d say at least 15-20% lead to actual conversations and of those probably 70-80% lead to actual dates and least 50% of those have led to second (and more) dates. On match.com, 30 attempts at communication resulted in two replies. One was a dead end of IM conversations with a girl that was stuck on a previous boyfriend and the other led to a dead-end of a first date with a girl that seemed really stuck on herself. I was a member of chemistry.com for all of 10 minutes. If the matches they sent me were any indication, maybe they should change their policy of not rejecting anyone. There’s no way I would pay for access to their user base.
Anyway, my point is that it’s no big loss to be rejected by eharmony. That site’s a joke. In fact any site that asks you to pay to subscribe has it in their interest to keep you from meeting anyone. There are some freesites out there (I hear a lot of bad stuff about craigslist but plentyoffish seems like it might be legit) but ultimately, if you’re going to use online dating, you’re going to have to be ready to deal with a majority of respondants who are a waste of time. I recommend meeting soon rather than spending a lot of time exchanging emails or IM’s or phone calls because people are different in person. Good luck.
Save your time and money. You have better odds of finding your soul-mate commenting on stupid blog articles at Consumerist and Lifehacker…
er, any single, 20-something female billionaires who look like Paris Hilton interested in long walks on the beach?
Save your time and money. You have better odds of finding your soul-mate commenting of stupid blogs at Consumerist or Lifehacker…
er, any single, 20-something female billionaires who look like Paris Hilton interested in long walks on the beach?
I too blame the “victim.” Eharmony sets the rules. Why would they save the survey questions of an ineligible person just in case the person become eligible at some point in the future?
@SpiderJerusalem: Here’s another happy OkCupid user. It’s difficult to meet people offline when you don’t drink (so no bars) and don’t have much time for clubs.
@zingbot:
Truly dating the old fashioned way, as in 1983–Mr. T starter set, pink Izod, helmet hair. I can see the brass and smell the Stetson.
@Trai_Dep: You’re so old testament. There’s a new one you know.
If you don’t like EHarmony, stop whining and go somewhere else. And to say that they have no right to ask for the info and to refill out the survey, it’s their company. Start your own if you want to and run it like you want.
@cronick: Consumerist is the perfect place to find money conscious, articulate and intelligent people (who can usually spell and write complete sentences), especially those with a bias toward blaming the victim.
Any chance that Drgirlfriend is now Drexgirlfriend?
One vote for FastCupid.com. I met Mr. Verified on it, and it’s by far the best money I ever spent.
eharmony has QUALITY CONTROL for people
Just for fun, I’d like to point out the irony in a recent eHarmony commercial: You see the happy couple stating how they accept each other as they are, yadda yadda, yet the have the woman STANDING ON A BOX so that she seems taller than she actually is.
I thought it was funny.
Maybe it’s just me.
Ugh. I find the whole eHarmony model repellent. And I’m not talking about the fact that the company is bigoted, discriminatory, intrusive, hypocritical, etc. I’m talking about the basic premise of using a computer algorithm to take the “guess work” out of searching for a compatible partner. I mean, seriously, are people that lazy? It’s not hard to find someone you’re compatible with — just know what you’re looking for, and then don’t bother dating people who don’t meet most of your criteria. Sheesh.
People are usually not the best judge of what can make them happy. An algorithm is nothing more than optimizing choices and separting noise (or whatever). Dating sites are better than bars/church (in theory) for this and an algotithm if it worked would be a great tool. Life is a gamble anyway. Cell phones are good but talking face to face is better, and so on.
@ChuckECheese: Harumph. That’s like New Coke.
I like my gods angry, spiteful, vengeful and capricious. Okaying a harem of wives doesn’t hurt either. Err, wives for Jesus!
@blandspace – Not really. A friend of mine married a moonbat he met on eHarmony, and we’re counting down the days until he wises up and divorces her. She either lied on the questionnaire or they were looking for psycho golddiggers. Since they married, she’s only cost him about $50K+ for all of her various “business” ventures. Maybe if she bleeds him dry, she’ll move on to another victim.
eHarmony not only doesn’t allow gays to use their service, they apparently think that gays are so alien to the human race that their 4 billion-point compatibility survey won’t work for gay folks.
See: [www.bizreport.com]
They could solve most of their critics if they asked for an honest marital status FIRST. They make you fill out the hour long survey (yes, it is that long) and THEN the marital status is asked last. Then, if you are even separated, BZZZZZZZZT!! My Aunt tried eHarmony and met a few fellas but the e-mail/vetting process does get tedious after awhile and creeps still get through.
Match.com is where I met my last soulmate.
eHarmony hates pre-marital sex, gays and athiests. Don’t support them.
The whole concept of eHarmony itself is just ridiculous. “Don’t try and think for yourself, we know better than you do what you want in a mate. We’ll go find that person for your, at our own pace of course.” As far as the marital status thing, I’d like to know if they ask to confirm the status of every single applicant. It seems rather curious that, in this instance, they want proof of her divorce, but I’m guessing that they don’t make a habit of this.
my boss met her husband speed-dating and he is the most obnoxious person I know. I think she just wanted kids. anyway, I’m in E-Harmony’s camp. If the consumer in question were male, everyone would be cheering e-harmony for not promoting skeeziness.
Every other match-making institution (online, bars, colleges) at some point drops their standards and gets sleezy. Finally, one company is sticking to their principles. And they are THEIR principles. You don’t own the company. You have plenty of other options to meet your future ex-spouse.
As @spanky said, eHarmony is extremely conservative, and they want to appeal to the conservative crowd. It’s not illegal, it’s not unfair, and it’s not even wrong, it’s just what they do. I, personally, do not subscribe to their philosophy, but I will argue to the end for their right to do it. As many others said, if you don’t like, it, there are plenty of other matching / dating sites out there.
Good for them! If I could afford to use them I would.
I stopped going to dating websites cause of all the men there who claimed to be single but once I got to chatting with them either I would figure out or they would admit they were married and just looking for some side action.
Its unreal the married men that have IM’d me when I’ve been online. Its gotten to the point where one of the first questions I ask them is “Are you married?” Most of the at least have the decency to tell me the truth and then I tell them goodbye!
@marsneedsrabbits:
Homosexuality is immoral. Good for EHarmony that they stand up to that perversion!
Sum of thread: EHarmony takes themselves too seriously.
@deb35802: How sad for you.
When Okcupid matched me with a 500 pound suicidal basketcase, I blanked my profile.
@deb35802: How sad, to think you’re so judgmental. I honestly feel sorry for you.
It’s amazing how much misinformation is in these replies. For example: 1. There’s nothing in their questions that has to do with politics or political beliefs. 2. You can adjust your settings to be matched with any ethnicity you want. Anyway, you get the idea. As for the original story– I know plenty of women who’ve been matched with married guys on other sites. I’m sure those women would find this approach to be a good thing.
eHarmony is a third rate con job. I filled out their so-called “questionnaire” and they sent me a quite nasty e-mail telling me that I scored in their “lower quadrant” and I should look elsewhere. The reply made me feel like a jerk. Screw them.
@deb35802: it must really be awful to go around life feeling that sort of hatred towards people of any sort. Like the others, I feel sorry for you.
@ecocoaster: I may have missed a specific comment you were referring to, and if so I apologize, but I don’t think that anyone was accusing eHarmony of discriminating against non-conservatives; most everything I’ve seen said that eHarmony was an extremely conservative company – and by my understanding Dr. Warren is a reliable republican donor. But I could be wrong.
@humphrmi: Absolutely right, we may not like it, but it’s not illegal. My problem is that they don’t enforce this across all members, they just seem to have targeted this woman. If they did it for every applicant, then at least you know what you’re getting into. They just seemed to have capriciously applied this standard to this woman; that’s what I have a problem with.
This guy clearly isn’t your typical hypocritical, money-grubbing, GOP-apologist, Undead-Jewish-Zombie-fellating freak. Even though he stands to lose a lot of money by only allowing members who conform to his strict, strictly idiotic, deontological moral code, he’s going ahead with this policy.
I’m not sure which I hate more… the casual hypocritical Christian who cares enough to interfere with the progression of science but not so much as to interfere with his profits or the militant, non-hypocritical one that makes only the most assiduous efforts to conform to the brainless, useless principles of his faith.
They both should die in a fire… but which deserves it more?
@NameGoesHere: That happened to me too! Kind of made me wonder, when after all of that, you get NOTHING.
I figured everyone on there must be squares. After checking out other online dating sites, I’ve come to the conclusion the kind of men I’m interested in DON’T use online dating sites.
The problem is actually signing up for E-Harmony.
That’s got to be one of the worst dating websites out there.
What’s this woman’s problem? If I were thinking of joining an online dating sight in search of my future spouse or the beginning of a serious relationship, I’d certainly want to know that the site made absolutely sure that all the information people were providing was factual. And you know of course that if they didn’t make you verify all that stuff and some predator made an account and raped or killed someone, everyone would blame the site for not taking their customers’ safety more seriously by verifying everyone’s status and identity.
Seriously, there’s just no pleasing some people.
@MaelstromRider: You fail.
Why when people put the word ” fail ” into the comment section I always find that extremely funny. I feel like either Beavis or Butthead. He said fail har har har snort
I think they should say upfront that they don’t accept separated people so that someone won’t take an hour filling out a questionnaire only to be told at the end that they are unacceptable.
But really, they are probably doing her a favor by not letting her use their expensive and crappy site when there are free ones out there that are better.
@Melsky: You might get the idea from their website; go to eharmony.com without logging in and you see two tabs: “Single” and “Married”. Go to the “Single” tab and you can get started with their matching service. Go to the “Married” tab and it offers you an online marriage counseling service.
Without an explicit statement, I can get the gist of what they’re saying – “If you’re single, we’ll help you find a mate. If you’re married, we’ll help you stay that way.”
@aphex242: You said that so much better than I did!
I think their advertising should include the fact that they are enforcing these “morals”. More people would find them creepy.
“We will protect you from the gay and the married.” (Though not from the folks who lie and say otherwise.)
@deb35802: Wow – I feel sorry for you, too. Being so judgmental and all.
I’d like to see a hook-up site that would provide independent verification of peoples HIV status…
I’ve read 1 out of 3 women have sex on their first date on these sites and 50% of them unprotected..
@hanoverfiste: I’d like to see if its 1 out of 3 women having sex via these websites on the first date…how many men that use them have sex on the first date? Or, even better, how many men use these sites to be able to meet and have sex with large numbers of women?
@scarletvirtue (ΣΣΣ): Having morals is judgmental? Alrighty then.
Wait…
eHarmony isn’t even making her send in a divorce decree? What’s the problem here?
Something tells me that Morgan only had problem with providing this information because she isn’t really divorced. If she is actually divorced, I don’t see a reason to withhold that information from them since divorce decrees are public record.
@deb35802:
You wrote: Homosexuality is immoral. Good for EHarmony that they stand up to that perversion!
How sad it must be to be you.