Better Business Bureau Complaints on the rise for Dating Sites

I found an interesting statistic. Apparently in 2009, there was 2,660 consumer complaints nationwide in the United States against dating services (both online and off). In 2005 there was only 824 and in 2004 only 126. Considering that there are about 40 million singles that used dating sites and social networks to meet new people last year, this number doesn't seem overly high. I realize that the increase from 2004 to 2009 is big but I think there is a reason for that too (besides the dating sites themselves). I am not sure exactly how businesses get put into the BBB databases and for the record I couldn't find a lot of them back in 2008 (see Story) but, how many dating companies existed in the BBB database in 2004 and then in 2009? Is it the same or are there twice as many companies? If it is more, chances are you will have more complaints. When I reviewed a few BBB reports, I see that Match.com only became an Accredited Business of the Better Business Bureau in 2006. PerfectMatch came on board just last year. I have a feeling that a part of the rise of complaints is due to the fact many of these dating service companies were never being tracked until just a few years ago.

Dating sites can also be hard to find in the BBB database, especially if it is owned by a company with a different name. Sometimes you can only find complaints about a certain dating site if you visit their parent company. Though, since my 2008 report it does seem that the Bette Business Bureau website has seen a few improvements. It was much easier to find a number of dating sites now since the search for the BBB seems to take into account websites own by the company. With this in mind I was still not able to find several medium size dating sites in the BBB database (US or Canada) and one of the largest dating sites, PlentyofFish.com. If these dating sites were included, we would certainly see more complaints.

When people release statistics like this I wish they would give us a comparison. It would be nice to know how many people used the products or services in the industry when compared to the complaints. This way I could see that this "blank" percentage of people were not happy. Plus, if I had other industry numbers, I could then see how it stacks up with the dating industry to get a better idea if 2,660 complaints is a lot, or not much to worry about.

I want to make it clear here, I am not saying that the rise of complaints is solely a reporting issue. I do think most dating sites have a lot more room for improvement on not only the features they offer, but on how they treat their customers.

For more information read WISBusiness.com.