Online Dating

Yesterday we wrote about the True.com $1.5 million lawsuit settlement (see Story). Dallas News did a piece as well, which uncovered a few additional facts. The lawsuit will cover customers who were charged incorrectly as far back as 2003. A lawyer of the plaintiff (Thomas Wong) stated that both True.com and themselves can identify former customers that are eligible for a refund. Those that were charged for an extra 1 month membership will receive $35 and those charge with over a month may receive $50. Over 150,000 ex-members of True are expected to be compensated.

Before any refunds are handed out, this settlement still must be approved by U.S. District Judge David C. Godbey.

Surprisingly, apparently the personal ad has been around for 300 years according to a new book called Classified: The Secret History of the Personal Column. The new book is published by Random House Books and should be available by March 16, 2009. According to the author and history lecturer at the University of Nottingham, H.G. Cocks, matrimonial agencies first appeared in the early 1700s in the United Kingdom and worked byadvertised bachelors looking for a wife through print ads. This was just a few decades after the invention of the modern newspaper. The book explores the social history of the personal ad in Britain from its start in the 1700's, through World War II and lonely soldiers looking for a lady friend, to today where online dating sites and online classifieds have taken over from the newspaper.

Visit Live Science for a bit more information on the subject or Amazon for details on purchasing the book.

I was emailed some documents yesterday which involves the civil action case 3:07-cv-01244-N. This is the case where Thomas Wong and others, initiated a class action lawsuit against the dating site True.com about their auto billing and renewal practices of memberships. Thomas Wong originally filed his petition on June 12, 2007.

On Friday, in the Dallas, Texas federal court a $1.5 million settlement was filed. According to document 80-2:

The Settlement Agreement requires defendant TrueBeginnings, LLC ("True") to pay $1.5 million into a settlement fund that will be used to provide refunds to certain members of the Settlement Class, and to provide free 45-day subscriptions to certain other members of the Settlement Class (thereby providing several million dollars in additional benefit to the Settlement Class). In addition, the Settlement Agreement requires entry of an injunction prohibiting True from engaging in "auto-subscription" of ex-subscribers for at least four years...

Perfectmatch.com sent us a coupon which enables new members to receive $30 off a 3 Month Subscription. This is over a 30% savings off of the regular price. With this promotion, members will also get a free copy of the Book "Finding Your Perfect Match" by Dr. Pepper Schwartz. She is a leading relationship authority, and the author of 14 other books. Dr. Schwartz also help design Perfectmatch's DUET total compatibility matching system.

This promotion is valid from March 2, 2009 until March 31, 2009.

To get started, visit Perfectmatch.com, the promotion will automatically be applied when you signup.

Update - We just got another unique coupon from Perfectmatch. This one gives new members $29.95 off a 2 Month Subscription. This means your membership will cost only $49.95, instead of the regular price of $79.95. This promotion is valid until March 31, 2009.

So Discover the Perfectmatch difference and SAVE over 36% on a 2 month membership.

For more information on this dating site, read our Perfectmatch.com review.

I just checked and the PlentyOfFish.com paid membership option is now available. We first talked about this late last week (see Story). So to recap, according to PlentyOfFish.com this upgrade shows that you are serious about meeting someone. The real value here though, when you pay for the upgrade is your profile will now be highlighted in gold, in the search results. This means your profile will stand out from the others on the list. Advertising will also be removed from your main profile page and in its place a Gold Star will be presented. Thumbnail images from your profile will also contain a star icon.

What we didn't know last week was the cost of all this. Here is the break down (in USD):

• 3 months costs $29.40 or $9.80 a month
• 6 months costs $46.80 or $7.80 a month
• 1 year costs $71.40 or $5.95 a month

White Label Dating mentions The Tonight Show from the iTV network which noted it is estimated that there will be 15 million singles in the United Kingdom by 2011. According to the post, this will make the value of the dating industry at that point, of over £1billion. By comparison, in 2008 there was 10 million Canadian singles and 93 million single Americans. As a general rule of thumb I found for the G7 countries that roughly 1/3 of the population is single at any one time.

For more dating sites that service the UK, see our United Kingdom dating category.