Dating Services

Some people have this vision of the type of people on your average online dating site. Assuming the very worst version of this vision, here's what the legions of online daters are:

• Losers
• Freaks
• Geeks/Nerds
• Psychopaths/Murderers/Con Artists
• Depressed People
• The Mentally Ill
• Ugly People
• Fat People
• People with No Social Skills
• People with No Friends
• People with No Life
• Etc, etc, etc.

While ANY subset of the population will include the people above, it is unfair to assume that online dating contains a majority of the "undesirables" of society. Let me give you a little example of who is really doing online dating:

Canadian singles will be celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend and that can only mean one thing... 😉

eHarmony Canada is having a Free Communication Weekend! This means all members will be able to not only review matches for free but they can communicate with them as well. Trying out eHarmony.ca to be matched and talk to members has never been easier.

The last free weekend for eHarmony Canada members was held the Labour Day long weekend in September (see Story).

If you would like more information on this matchmaking service, check out our eHarmony review. User reviews and ratings of eHarmony are also available on this page.

Élan Relationships has been around for 18 years now and claims to be Chicago's premiere personal introduction service. At least one woman disagrees. Sheena Finnegan signed up last May for $3,500 with the hopes of meeting her soul mate. Élan Relationships allegedly promised her:

... to find her “genuine, high caliber, professional” matches by setting her up with six “qualified introductions” in a six-month period ...

According to Finnegan all she got was heartache, frustration and disappointment.

By the end of June Sheena had only been on two dates with men she felt did not suit her. She also had been scheduled for 3 other dates which were all cancelled, and not by her. Since Sheena had a number of cancelled dates, she did get her membership extended by one month. After some more dates and two more cancellations Finnegan had had enough. She found that none of the men were what was promised to her. She contacted Élan Relationships and asked for a refund and was refused. According to Sheena Finnegan:

the company’s contract was “misleading…false…fraudulent” and did not make any favorable matches for her.

In her lawsuit Sheena is asking for an unspecified amount of money in damages and an injunction to prevent Élan from continuing to practice the alleged deceitful business techniques.

Élan Relationships is a member of the Better Business Bureau and they have been a BBB Accredited business since November 2006. They currently hold a BBB Rating of B. According to the BBB, the company Élan Relationships has had only a few complaints filed against them, with most of them either being Resolved or Administratively Closed due to a fair offer being made.

For a list of other personal matchmakers, try our Matchmaking Services category.

eHarmony has extended the expiry dates of the coupon codes for two of their more popular promotions. Both of these coupon codes expire on December 31, 2009.

eHarmony Coupon #1

eHarmony Coupon #2

These coupon codes are valid only on the eHarmony Canada (eHarmony.ca) and eHarmony United States (eHarmony.com) dating sites. Read our review of eHarmony for more information about this online matchmaking service.

OkTrends recently took a look at how religion and race affects online matching. This is a summary of what they found based a random pool of 500,000 members:

• The Zodiac Sign - Statistically makes no difference. It doesn't matter if you are a Leo and female, the person you end up with has an equal chance of being any of the twelve Zodiac signs.
• Match By Religion - Agnostics and Jews get along better with most other religion groups while Muslims and Hindu men tend to be the most choosey.
• Match By Religious Attitude - It doesn't seem to matter how serious someone is about their religion. You have an almost equal chance of liking someone who doesn't take it too serious.
• Match By Race - Surprisingly there is nothing dramatic here. The overall compatibility of all races is pretty even.

For a more detailed explanation on how race and religion effect matching, read oktrends and to find out more information about this dating site read our review of OkCupid.

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.