Complaint Review: Great Expectations

Damages: $2,550 for a 3 year membership.

I have been trying to get out of my contract with Great Expectations (January 28, 2206) for 6 months. I went through my credit card company in March 2006. They would not reverse the charges because of the 3 day cancellation policy. Then my attorney requested a refund in June 2006. Great Expectations has not responded and every time I contact them I am told the Center Director is handling it and is on vacation.

I experienced exact what everyone else on this site has experience. When I signed the contract, I asked to see the online services but was told that I had to wait until my video and photos were taken. They did not give me a copy of the contract. I week later I went in for video and photos and then was told I had to pay an additional $1,000 to have my photos posted on the ge-dating website and that I could not upload my own photos. Then I was introduced the online service. I was appalled that I was unable to sort and select persons based on profile information provided. I immediately call the next day to get my money back and my phone calls were never returned.
Great Expectations represented their dating service as been for high quality members and on the premise that the online service is for busy professionals. This is not the case at all. To find matches you can only select on an age range and smoking or nonsmoking, which returned over the maximum of 2,500 matches in alphabetical order by first name. Unlike other popular online dating services like Yahoo Personals, match.com, Great Expectation matches can not be sorted by demographics, profile, interests, preference, location and last active. It takes an average of 3 minutes to review one profile which would take over 200 hours to review all the profiles that matched. I believe Great Expectations intentionally misinformed me and I entered into an irrevocable contract based on my belief Great Expectations would deliver on their services. My account was deactivated by Great Expectation on March 16, 2006 because I did not respond to a member that was totally undesirable and mismatched. This was the only match I received in 3 months. I was told that I could expect up to five members requesting to communicate with me a day. One is 3 months further proves to me that I am not the only member who finds Great Expectations services to be unusable and very difficult and time consuming to find compatible people. Therefore, I believe Great Expectation is in breach of the agreement I signed for services.

Cynthia
Fremont, California
U.S.A.