Australia

eHarmony Australia is having a Free Communication Weekend starting this Thursday, December 31st, 2009 to Sunday, January 3rd, 2010. For some reason it is a day shorter than the North American event (see Story) but it still offers the same great value. All eHarmony members can review their matches and communicate with them for free during this 4 day event. No credit card is required.

The last eHarmony Australia free communication weekend was held at the beginning of October (see Story). By our count this is eHarmony Australia's 3rd event.

To find out why Australian singles have made this a popular online dating destination, read our eHarmony review.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) court action against Scott Mark Moles and Jobspy Pty Ltd have seen fines totaling $6.5 million AUD over a mobile phone dating scam.

The scam generated more than $2 million in revenues and involved employees of Jobspy Pty Ltd creating fake profiles on legitimate dating site with the purpose of obtaining cell phone number of other members. The scammers would then conduct text message conversation with these members via a so-called "safe divert" service to keep their mobile phone number private. In reality the members who were being scammed, were being charged $5 per text message. They were told by the scammers that the "safe divert" service was part of their dating site membership fees.

For the full news item, read News.com.au.

The online personals site, Match.com has recently partnered with eBay Australia. So from now on, when you click on the dating menu item at eBay's Australian website you will be directed to Match.com's Australian dating service. eBay AU has about 8 million members and Match.com wanted to tap into this pool of internet users.

To visit eBay Dating, see this page and for more information on the dating site and how it works, read our Match.com review.

We just got word that eHarmony in Australia (eHarmony.com.au) is having a free communication weekend starting today, Friday October 2nd, and ending Monday October 5th, 2009.

Not only can all members (including free ones) review matches for free but you can communicate with them as well. Just remember if you are a new non paying member, don't use the guided communication FastTrack option. This option is not available for free during this promotion and you would lose the ability to communicate with this member. For those of you who have not used eHarmony before, the FastTrack option allows you to skip the 4 step guided communication process and permits you to go ahead and send a email message right away to your match.

The last eHarmony Australia Free Communication Weekend was held at the end of August (see Story).

Read our review of eHarmony and find out why Australian singles have made this a very popular matchmaking service.

From a Australia point of view, online dating for singles 50 years or older, is seeing a huge increase in popularity. The premier Australian dating site, RSVP has seen a 30 percent increase of these members each year, for the last 5 years. Currently 13 percent of all members are over the age of 50 at RSVP.

RSVP is not alone in their findings. Other Australian dating sites are reporting the same trend. Match.com Australian dating site has seen similar numbers. 12 percent of Match.com.au members are over 50 and this age groups saw an increase of 23 percent in 2008.

For a bit more on this story, see Stuff. To find out more about the most popular dating site in Australia, read our RSVP review.

I have finished up our new review of the dating site, RSVP. It is the first dating site in our new Australian Dating Site category. I hope to have a few more added to this new dating category by the end of May.

RSVP is owned by Fairfax Digital and currently is the largest Australian dating site with over 1 million members. It uses a stamp/credit system for initiating contact with members and it is free to reply to any message from a member. This is also the only dating site that I know of which Australians can use there mobile phone to access the dating site and receive SMS alerts.

Read the new RSVP review for more information.