You’re in the mood for love, simply because there are a whole lot of eligible singles near you. That’s how it goes at speed dating events, where organizers bring in singles, sit’em down and have everyone meet everyone else for a few minutes at a time before moving on. But customers of a Boston-area dating service say the company has misled them by taking money for speed dating events when there was no event to actually attend.

WBZ-TV‘s Joe Shortsleeve (great name, btw) and the I-Team investigated customer claims  that the company slighted them in numerous ways, including setting up dating events that never happened.

A producer wanted to see what customers were complaining about, so she paid a fee to attend a speed dating event at a local restaurant. Her credit card was charged, but when she showed up, there was no party.

“I went over and asked the bartender myself what was up with the company or what was going on, and the first thing he said was that they’ve been really inconsistent,” she said. “And he apologized that there wasn’t an event, and he said that this has happened before, where people have showed up.”

That same thing happened at an event advertised at a Starbucks — neither the patrons in the shop nor the manager had any clue there was supposed to be a dating event.

And when those events actually do happen, they’re far from perfect, say customers.

One woman went to an event where it was supposed to be 22- to 32-year-olds but one of her potential dates was 46. She’s 24.

“My jaw dropped,” she said. “That’s horrifying, that’s a 22 year age difference. He is old enough to be my father.”

The company says unless it’s a speed dating event “venues are not notified”  — which doesn’t explain the speed dating event the producer attended that never existed — and that “all of our events are legit.”

Not so fast, says a rep from the Better Business Bureau:

“Consumers are reporting to us that they go in, and what is set as an expectation, what they are paying for is not at all what they are getting when they walk into one of these events.”

I-Team: Dating Service Accused Of Misleading Customers In Boston [WBZ-TV]

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