Frind gets Serious about a Paid Model

It's easy to cut this Idea apart. Some may say that he's taking advantage of his customers, by charging them for essentially no extra features or access. Personally I think it's a perfect balance. It's the exact same as any other virtual good you can buy online today. (cyworld, habbo, etc) I am getting something in return, even if it's virtual, it counts. If I saw the "paid user" logo next to a profile, I automatically give it more credibility as a listing because I know that someone entered their credit card number and paid for the listing; Chances are much lower that they're not who they say they are.

I'm a believer. - Great job Marcus!

This doesn't sound like a very serious effort at "paid" to me... why not offer enhanced capabilities to paid users like priority emailing and/or profile featuring? No fundamental change to the usage model and no "exclusive" features, but represents substantial value for lonely men (let's face it, chicks chat free) to cut above the froth of the freeloaders.

Women face a fundamental problem on all dating networks in managing the volume of incoming traffic in their mailboxes/chat windows/whatever. So by charging men for top-of-the-inbox status they're doing a service for both.

Danny: suck up much?

What Frind and Plenty of Fish is not advertising is that he/they are seeding the site with free badges for women (and possibly men) who have attractive profiles. So far I've contacted or been contacted by four women with these badges and all four haven't paid for them: "Big Fish" on the site (presumably Frind) contacted them to offer the badges, or they simply found them on their profiles without asking. Those that were offered them refused them but they had the badges stuck on their profile anyway. The women that have asked for them to be removed have had no response. His information page about the memberships clearly indicates that people with badges have paid. http://www.plentyoffish.com/seriousintro.aspx ... there is no mention that some of the people might have received the badges against their will otherwise without paying. So much for the stated intention of using payment to weed out those that aren't serious (one of the women told me "I'm anything but serious ... this kinda pisses me off"). I have emailed them three times since 5 p.m. Friday asking about this. I, unfortunately, paid for a membership, and I want my money back as this is not the service he advertised.

Interestingly, PoF admits that despite what their sign-up page says, many people do not pay for their "Serious Member" badge (and therefore invalidating their own claim that serious people pay up): "Free upgrades were awarded to random members chosen by the system that have proven to show regular activity on the site and good behavior. Users that we would consider to be Serious Members. Those that are not in agreeance with the label email us and we promptly remove the status from their profile. You can rest assured that after two weeks time, those users that do not see themselves as Serious Members are likely to have contacted customer service and downgraded their status, leaving you with a more defined idea as to who is serious about dating."

Despite the fact that our picture of who is "serious" is undefined at the moment, in their own admission, I can't get my money back. If Frind is standing behind this behaviour then I must seriously doubt his ethics. I wonder why he is pursuing such a transparent tactic if he is doing so well?

Incidentally, several of the women had been trying to get the "Serious member" badge removed for more than four days. One described the response I posted above from PoF in these terms: "Wow what a bold faced lie. "