Group therapy in a blog.
AN “ANSWER”
And the word “answer” is in quotes because I’m not sure this response constitutes an answer.
JDate responded to my query.
Dear Member,
All profiles are active until a member decides to remove his or her profile from the site. As a member, you have the option to sort your search preferences by: New Members, Most Active, and Most Popular.
If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us any time at our toll free number: 1-877-453-3861. You can also reach us at: 1-323-836-3000.
JDate.com Customer Care
I posted a longer version of my letter to them yesterday, but then had to send this shorter version to JDate, because they only allow 500 characters of feedback.
You sent me, among my matches, a guy WHO HASN’T LOGGED INTO JDATE SINCE NOVEMBER OF 2002. Why send out a profile of a member who is not active?
Are all the profiles that were ever put up still floating out there unless their owners specifically delete them? When you claim over 500,000 members, does that include all the people who have ever registered, most of whom may not log in regularly? Even if they do, they may not be paying members and therefore unable to view messages anyway?
What do you think, my readers? Is this an acceptable response to the question I sent them?
Technically it is an answer, but it really the bare minimum of answers. Very PR of them. (Just like I was taught in school, be honest, but be brief).
In line with this, I let my Jdate subscription lapse in September. Mostly this was because women who clearly did not meet my profile (as to being kosher, temple going and shabbat observant) kept e-mailing me. I almost always wrote them back a pleasant note, and sometimes a longer one if I thought it was possible that they or I misunderstood.
I still get e-mails from Jdate saying that I have mail and that I should log on to retrieve them. But, with my subscription lapsed, I am not able to log on.
I have no problem with Jdate not letting me get the benefits without paying, but I feel bad and uncomfortable about the fact that those women who wrote to me will think I am rudely ignoring or immediately rejecting them.
I wrote Jdate and asked them to inform those women that I cannot retrieve their messages or respond, but it doesn’t look like they will do so. In a sense, they are damaging my reputation and in a way hardly consistent with traditional Jewish values. Morever, since I can’t log on, I can’t even delete my profile so that it doesn’t continue to happen in the future.
If they lock me out because I no longer subscribe that’s fine, but then they should also remove my profile, rather than keep my face and profile up and count me as one of their available-to-meet members.
I recently was contacted by a woman on JDate and as I was off sick I responded to her a number of times. I asked her to send me her photo so I sent her my email address (I don’t normally write to people without photos).
She gave me her email address and her name.
She also gave her cellphone number.
When she answered the phone it turned out to be a woman who has been “stalking” me for 7 months after briefly having a relationship with her.
When I asked for Sarah she told me her real name she admitted that I wouldn’t have contacted if I had known her true identity.
As a result I have told her lots of personal information which I wouldn’t have done if I had known.
Nowhere do they warn you not to give out to much personal information because you don’t know who people really are.
When I threatened to inform JDate she immediately changed her JDate name. I have a record through my messages.
I complained to JDate and their response is risible ie that I can block the person. But as far as I am concerned the damage is done.
Now all she has to do is register as another individual, I know this is unlikely, and contact me again.
And she did use JDate to seriously deceive me.
Naturally I was very upset.
(500 characters ie 100 words is hardly enough to indicate a serious complaint)