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I recently heard about a popular personals site that was 100% free and ad supported. Apparently it was created by an internet marketing guy who started it from his own apartment (or something along those lines). I was quite surprised and as someone now in internet marketing, I wanted to see what it was all about.
At first glance, the site seemed a bit amateur in terms of design but you couldn’t expect much more of a site that was free of charge. I signed up and filled out my profile and went on my merry way. I soon received messages from some interesting (and not so interesting) people and was actually quite impressed with all the little things you could do. My mind naturally ignored the incessant advertisements plastered all over the pages but looked at the bigger picture - a site with tens of thousands of members and a full way to communicate with them without pulling out your credit card. (Schweet!) First I uploaded one photo before added a few more to add to my credibility. Here and there I do professional photo shoots for fun so I had two professional photos along with two normal ones…. I mean everyone puts up their best right? I filled out my profile (quite nicely I might add) and was ready to go.
Well much to my dismay, the day I uploaded the new photos and was writing to someone, I was unable to login. I tried again and again. I then searched for my user name on the system and nothing - they had fully deleted my profile! It was nowhere to be found - no warning - nothing.
I pondered over what the hell could have gotten my profile banished from the system. On the main site it says:
We banish anyone who is extremely rude, has anger management issues, uploads fake pictures or is otherwise unfit to date.
My photos were me and were real, my profile was well written and lengthy and I had been nothing but respectful to the other members. Am I really unfit to date? Come on now. I had already made connections with some super cool people and was angry that now I was no longer able to contact them - what a tease. Now I’m all about monitoring websites and removing the fakes and the violators but what ever happened to fairness? We suppose the website owners have the right to do anything they please and as a non-paying member I really don’t have too much to gripe about right? Wrong.
I may not pay money but if your model is based on pleasing members by having them not pay, how about implementing a proper system for profile removal? Now I wouldn’t have written this post had it stopped at that. I then read that sometimes the website will remove profiles accidentally and if they do, then “their apologies.” It advises you in that case to make another profile. Now I’m believing that they have a system in place so that if they see a profile reappear that is similar to the one just deleted, they automatically delete it. I’ve tried two additional times to create a new profile and was deleted the moment after signing up. Frankly I’m enraged. Do I have to put up photos of an ogre to remain on the site? I’m by no means saying I’m “hot” but two of my photos were very nice so does that automatically mean I’m fake? I really can’t pinpoint any other reason as to why I was deleted and to not get the right to create another profile that goes by their *terms” is ridiculous! By doing this, they’ve told me to pretty much F&#K off and forget about the site. How is there not a way to contact administrators? Oh that’s right..it’s free…it’s supposed to be that way. That is why this post is up - there is absolutely no way to get on after deleted. That is horrible customer service - whether the site is free or not.
It just baffles me that I’m physically NOT allowed on the site - for absolutely NO reason. I then read articles like this one - Praising the creator. Well straight out - I think you suck Markus. Implement a better system and don’t let your high and mighty administrators (which you claim to not have any of them) remove people for absolutely no reason. Make a GOOD system in place and don’t piss off exuberant amounts of people. As someone who graciously spreads the word about good products and services, I would have easily used my lovely social media skills and marketed the hell out of your half0assed site. Now you just left a bad taste in my mouth…
Apparently there fish for me.
Tag: plenty of fish
Hi, I have had the exact smae expeience. I created a profile and had a decent decription of my self and what I was looking for. I emailed several people and had a few good responces and a few not so good responces. But I have always been very nice to everyone that I have emailed or chatted with through the Instant Messenger, and never rude or mean. Then one day I cant log on, my profile was deleted, permanately. I have tried to recreate several time, only to be deleted within a few minutes.
And I believe I know how you are deleted. I have been delted by not doing anything wrong. There have been others who have never used the site who can not create a profile. So how can they have done something wrong.
I believe some user or the POF system has done something wrong and the system has deleted them. But they are on the same IP/Subnet address and same Interenet provider as you are. So the address is banned and so are everyone who is within that area.
I have tried to use another computer at someone elses house with the same Internet Provider, using a differnet log in name and different email address. I still could not log in and create a profile. Thats the only thing that I could think of how I could be banned. I can not email POF customer service, they will not respond. So how does one honest person who wants to use the site, get around this or fix this problem?
I am totally outraged at the level of customer service delivery on POF and the randomness that occurs with regards to profile deletion. I have read so many forums about the site (since i’ve taken in upon myself to investigate the issue). The simple fact is that there is no system in place, no moderators or site facilitators, no genuine care for enabling people to hookup with one another. I have concluded that it is all about the cash for Markus Frind who owns the site. He gets paid ridiculous sums of cash for advertsing and people then get randomly kicked off the site when his servers are unable to cope with the large amounts of people who sign up. If only all these people went to OKCupid, with its better design, intuative features, increased level of customer care and more importantly - the fact that its also 100% free!