Zoosk

This site does not deserve any stars as it is totally fraudulent relying on fake profiles to draw you in and subscribe.

How do i know this?

I uploaded a profile and immediately i got messages from some rather good looking people but i could not read my messages until i subscribed. So i did, all 3 messages from the good looking profiles asked where my profile picture was. I was still setting up profile and loaded it.
Now the good looking profiles (bear in mind i am a 41yr old female who has been on dating sites previously) never once entered my profile again as Zoosk records this. Okay so i may not be their standard but why would good looking profiles start emailing all new joiners asking for their profile pictures, Zoosk do not need too.

I studied these profiles, there were 3 in total and they were very similar as all the men has their photos verified, had received stacks of gifts (promoting new users to buy gifts) whereas when you compare to the average normal user, no one in their 40's has been sent gifts as it is childish and they are online for almost for 24 hours a day.

I do not doubt there are regular users as the numbers are huge on this site, i just want to warn others that you could be drawn into subscribing under false pretenses. I am not bitter that i have not met someone as there are plenty of sites to join i just wanted to give my honest opinion on this site. I feel pretty strongly about this that i will email Trading Standards to ask for an investigation on their practice.

I also object to the fact that i cannot remove my profile from the site until my subscription month ends. I should be allowed to take down my profile at any stage in my subscription. Instead i have removed everything from my profile until i can take down.

I also want to add i have had approx 20 messages from regular users all saying a version of 'make my day, make my year by just emailing to say hi'. I assume the site suggests this sentence as i have had so many similar ones now.

This site is not like any others i have joined, where people do write proper emails, with questions and comments about your profile so you at least can communicate.

This maybe right for some people but i just wanted people to be aware before they join, what they are actually receiving for their money.

I signed up for th free membrship. Thank god, i didnt have the money to sign up. Within a few hours i got 2 texts, yes TEXTS, from numbers with different area codes. I looked them up. One was in California the other was in Texas. I knew that this was not an option given to potential members so i just went with it. The original text from" Cali" was a courteous "how are you doing today? My name is jordan. I noticed your profile. I think you are very pretty". I responded, "well thank you. What is your username so i can look at your profile picture. I would like to see if you are as cute as you seem". No answer to that. Ignored. Piqued my interest. So i changed the subject matter and decided to ask about living in California. He said, "I dont live in california" i said, "your area code says California". He text back, "i moved from Cali to Atlanta to stay with my AUNT after i lost my parents AND siblings" so i asked of course how did he lose them?(what he text me was like wtf?) He said "Zoosk walked out the door and never came back 10 YEARS ago." well i suspected it as a scam before. Now i knew it was. I just kept it going. "omg really? Nobody went looking for them or anything? Thats so sad. How old were you when all of this happened?" clearly i was looking for an inconsistancy-i found it. "i was 18." so i said, "you were grown whrn this happened? Why did you have to move to Atlanta to stay with your aunt if you were a grown man?" "what do you mean my darling?" so i pointed out that he had told me that he was 18 when all this "happened" to his family. That would make him 28 today. He said that i must have misunderstood. So i told him again that i wanted his username si could look him up on the site. He said i didnt need it. I said give it to me or leave me alone. He gave me some random name. Theres no feature that lets you search by username(he shouldve known that). I gave him some relief when i told him that there was a username on there similar to the one he gave me. I wasnt ready to bail on this scammimg of the scammer. I apologized saying that there were alot of scammers out there and I didnt want to get taken advantage of. He said he understood. So he said "tell me about you. I already know you are very pretty". I went into this big bullcrap story about how i was separated from my businessman husband. That we had finally hammered out visitation of the kids and were now separating our copious amounts of finances, accounts and property. "is your husband very wealthy? Very influential?" i told him that yes, indeed he is. I told him that the only property and money that was going to be separated was what was aquired after the wedding since there was a pre-nup. He asked me what i did for a living. I said" i dont work. I was a wife". Never heard from him again. I still dont know how he got my phone number.

My suggestions and thoughts: i think its absolutely that this app is free to download and then cost money to use. That they're isnt really a trial to try it out. You can't actually test it out to find out if you like it or not. You cant message anyone, try any of the features. Nothing... absolutely nothing unless you pay for the site. This is not a good marketing skill. I'm very disappointed in Zoosk all together. It's very unprofessional to such advertisement and make it sound great and then rip the welcone matt as soon as the application is downloaded. Can i afford to pay for it; yes. Absolutely, but I'm not likely to subscribe if they're isn't even a way for me to find out wheither i like it first or not. For me to pay for it and then find that it isn't something I'm interested in and then disputing the situation with your company would be a waste of time and energy on the the customers part. You should advertise that Zoosk is not a free site. That you do have to have a membership in order to do anything on the application or else it is useless. Honestly i believe that the google play store should enforce situations like this so that the customer has to pay up front in order to even download your application. At that point then you will find out how many downloads you won't recieve, and for the ones that do... you will just have another dirty way to dig into that persons pocket and win some more free money towards your company. From there you might actually be willing to hire someone who is not lacking the professionalism it takes to say what you doing is completely redundant and just plain out stupid. What you are really doing is just getting your ratings up by letting people download the application and then it show that number on the view of it on the play store. Not how many of those downloads are actually using your site. Not impressed at all. I find it very irritating and it pisses me off that your company is framed and structured this way. Someone on that end is not very intelligent. So since you wasted my time once more asking me for my review which you honestly couldn't give a damn about... other than letting me download this application and then trying to use it. I'll do you one more. I'm going to coppy and paste this E-mail. Post it to google review, Facebook, Twitter, anyplace that has zoosk attached and let people know that this is not the way to get they're attention and Zoosk shouldnt download it. See what im doing right now is venting becuase I'm a pissed off American who like to practice they're freedom of speech by giving my opinion. No I'm not an application critic. I'm just a guy

I saw the Zoosk advertisements everywhere so I figured I'd give them a shot.

The only good thing to say of them is Zoosk have a brilliant ad department.

It doesn't take long before you realize what they're after. Your money. I signed up for a 3 month stint with the website. First you pay the subscription fee, AND a one time "activation fee." The activation fee is most likely to squeeze as much initial money out of you because they know after you try their service once, you will look elsewhere in the future.

This is due in part to the fact that the number of women on zoosk does not increase regularly. You will see the same profiles week after week before anyone "new" pops up. And there is about a 75% chance that "new" woman will be a fake user created by a scam artist.

After only my first month I was uploading any remotely attractive women's profile picture(s) to google images just to see what "popped up." Amateur porn stars, random website images, and photos stolen from myspace pages was what I got. I repeatedly reported these profiles to Zoosk, but their cracker-jack team of admins and moderators didn't seem to mind. I had accumulated 3 pages of blocked (fake) users and I would still come across a profile I'd reported multiple times in the past in my searches. They ban you for putting your email address in your profile, but post a cropped image of an attractive pornstar and they don't fact check in the slightest.

Another thing is the Zoosk Scientific match, and Carousel. Which is where the micro-transactions come in.
Zoosk will regularly send you emails about a "scientific match" which just means, "You're Christian? SHE'S Christian! You smoke? SHE smokes! You guys should totally hook up!" If you agree to the match and she does too, she becomes your "Mutual Match" which must be unlocked with "Zoosk coins" a fake currency that you have to pay real money for, or sign up for spam, surveys, and other garbage to obtain. Carousel works the same way.

So after all this bs you're left much poorer with scarcely a lady in sight. With terrible moderation, horrid pricing, and fake users galore stay away from these rip-off experts. Just do Plenty of Fish. There may be fake users, and scam artists on that site too, but at least I can get the same "benefits" of Zoosk minus the price of admission.

Hello again to my fellow readers. I hope U have taken my advise so far and also HAVE BEEN READING REVIEWS ON THE INTERNET AND LISTENING TO SOME VERY GOOD AND INFORMATORY ONES ON YOU TUBE before subscribing to any SEX, DATING, OR SINGLES SITES. READ FIRST! Zoosk are from considerate people, probably just like me who just want to protect your WALLETS or for some, PURSES.
Well, I did it again Guys! I am your "Guinea Pig" for another SITE. This time it is listed as the #1 SITE. Taking my own advice, Ihad only signed up for a month around July 5th. I quickly noticed all the Women on there from all races, types, and from all over the U.S. Like always, I had text a few of my desired type, then just alittle while in, I started to notice I had text around 40. I had to immediatly stop. I said, what happens Cisco if more than enough answers and U like them all? Since I am a Gentleman and really am not searching to hurt any feelings of the interested Females, I did stop and started to view all that had viewed me and was quickly going to message the ones I wanted to really correspond with. It sees that I had I had earlier sent messages to most, so, still being interestd in them, I sent another message. As I've said to U before; "guess what"? Most of them had "viewed" me again, then again, and again. "WTF", I SAID! Why are they all just "viewing" me when I was really expecting a "message" by now! After I called the # for the site TWICE & through all the explaining and being credited a total of 300 coins, (which is optional for U to buy, but not necessary, and for me didn't see a need for) I went back and used the "coins" as suggested by those 2 phone calls on "boosting my profile". Again, "WTF"! Man! I was getting noticed more and more and still more! Almost 100! BUT, HOLD IT! THEY WERE STILL F~~K~N JUST "VIEWING" ME, AND NOT EVEN '1' MESSAGE AS A RESPONSE! The site had told me that some of the Women didn't make the required payment to be able to text or message back. Now, Guys, (lol) after all the sites I have been on, I have never heard of this or even had a problem with an interested Woman sending a response to my initial message, and not only that! Remember Guys, I had an initial 40 total messages sent, AND U MEAN TO TELL ME ALL 40 OF THEM THOUGHT TO COME TO THIS SITE AND KNOWINGLY NOT HAVING PAID TO BE ABLE TO RESPONDWITH A MESSAGE ARE ALL JUST GOING TO "VIEW" US GUYS AND NOT DO ANYTHING TO LET US KNOW THAT THEY LIKE US OR SAY HELLO TO NOTHING AT ALL? AND HERE I AM, REMEMBER, PAID IN FULL AND TEXTING MY ASS OFF AND STILL NOT RECIEVING ANY RESPONSES FROM THEM? "WTF" IS GOING ON HERE? Why would a non paying Woman even go to the site in the first place? I'd love to see what would happen if she really saw a Guy she really liked and could not do a dam thing about it? As for me at this point fellas, I had just e-mailed Zoosk right before texting this review to U. It was said that some Assistant will send a response to me in 2-3 days! I am as of now letting my "MONTH" subscription run out while waiting. Also in the meantime, I SENT A LAST TEXT TO "EACH INTERESTED WOMAN" THAT HAD "VIEWED" ME IN ALOT OF TIMES, THAT IF THEY WERE NOT GOING TO AT LEAST MESSAGE ME WITH A RESPONSE, THEN I HAD WANTED NOTHING MORE TO DO WITH THEM. I hope fellas that I will have better news to tell U all next time, but as of now at 2:15 am, (Pacific Time) Thursday, July 9th, 2015, my cellphone has been totally quiet since.

So I agree to a 3 month subscription for $59.95. I get double billed on Pay Pal. Now if it was a so-called 'pre-authorized' payment-you know the kind the hapless customer knows nothing about-then it should have been charged in three months rather than right away. It also came through as a payment rather than pre-authorized payment. So I ask Zoosk what is this about? What is the second payment even for? No reply. There is literally no customer service there. Moreover, there was no official email for the second $59 payment. So what is it for? It's like a ghost payment with real money. Then Zoosk force members to pay for stuff such as unlocking matches. So someone likes you on their silly carousel and you like them and you learn the information is locked. You have to pay coins which conveniently you can buy. Then you learn the woman has no interest in you whatsoever. If you want to pay for lies & deception Zoosk is the place to be. Only Badoo is skankier.

FOLLOW UP: 5 weeks later I finally receive a refund. It was difficult to contact Zoosk and I think it's set up that way intentionally. For the second time I asked them 'what is the second payment of $59 for?' They had no real answer for this as it had never appeared on my Zoosk account nor did I receive an official email for the second bill. So all they could say is some lame statement like it was my fault that I double clicked at Paypal which is crap. If I was mistakenly double-billed would they not have noticed earlier than 5 weeks? I had asked this same question much earlier but received no reply.

My experience is the same as that of so many other people: I'm convinced that essentially every profile featuring a decent looking man with a well written bio is fake. How do I know? Well, not too long ago I tried a couple of other online dating sites and was bombarded with hits from men in all walks of life - not just the sad, seemingly desperate ones who are currently chatting me up on Zoosk. Oh, get this. The system periodically matches people up by common attitudes then makes you pay to connect with this great person for you. As an experiment, I used 20 coins (which can also be accrued by participating in one of their sham surveys) to email said great match who Zoosk confirmed had also expressed an interest in meeting me... and nothing. No response whatsoever. However, I was given the option to invest another 20 coins to determine whether or not my email had been read yet. What a crock! Not to overstate my value, but I'm generally considered to be quite attractive and have a well written, interesting bio of my own. Funny, before I signed up for the paid membership, I used the Search function to see who might live in my vicinity & there were many choices. Suddenly, in a single day - since I paid - their profiles have all magically disappeared. The saving grace here is the fact that I requested a temporary number from my credit card provider in case Zoosk were to attempt to bill me beyond the 30 day membership I signed up for. Also, I enrolled over the phone rather than online specifically so I could tell the rep that I absolutely would not join unless the $35 new membership was waived & the the account NOT auto-renewed at the end of the month. How sad that one must go to such lengths to get even the smallest bit of satisfaction I've received on the site so far (this is day 2). Bottom line: Even with the precautions, using this place to enhance one's social life is a waste of money.

I think I can be wise but I fell for Zoosk. It is a scam. I signed up for 6 months with email address password and paid by PayPal. I mentioned in my profile that I "was not into Facebook or Apple club" and this statement was "edited=removed " by the reviewer. I have noticed that many pictures could not match the age declared by many "members" (i. E. too young too old etc.) and may sound somehow false. I believe that many profiles are fakes. However, in my 3 day after I paid the subscription, it be came impossible for me to message other members or open messages that I had received (as I was notified via Email). To do that I was to "authenticate" that I was a real person by providing my Facebook account or my Cellphone number. I believe that not allowing me to access my account is a breach of contract. There are other ways to verify my "real person" status; by email or "captcha" or answered questions, for example. I should not be forced to disclose more private information. In the terms & conditions; Zoosk request the right of use of all that you uploaded on their site and, the right to share information about you with their "business partners". This give then an enormous collection of data on private information regarding their subscribers. The images, email address, correspondence, phone number (for SMS marketing-tagging) and your Facebook activities info etc. The REAL purpose of this site is to collect and gather information on citizens so that Zoosk can use or sell to their "business" partners - whoever these partners are or may be in the future. Their purposes may be exploitative commercial or others kinds that we do not know. You may call it conspiracy paranoia IF - and only IF- you are able to prove that this is not possible to to be so.

Writing this, I did some confirmation research and have already found the limitless trove of "Zoosk is a scam" almost anywhere you can Google it. I'm posting it anyway because I've written it already.

What gets me is why hasn't the main stream media outed this yet? This would be a great Dateline investigation piece.

There are two main indicators that Zoosk is a largely fraud-operation running scam:

1. Is the monumental disparity between the amount of messages/attention/potential (fake) profiles you are presented with before you pay, and the complete lack of all aforementioned AFTER you pay.

If the amount of attention a user account with no profile information or even a picture gets 10 emails in it's first week, with no profile and a picture, then how is it that once the profile is filled out and a picture is uploaded those magic emails suddenly drop to nothing.
Does Zoosk really think people believe that people are so desperate that they've resorted to spending their daily time on Zoosk writing emails to and wanting to meet someone based solely on a username and an age? Also, how dumb does Zoosk think that people are to believe that people are really interested in contacting completely un-filled-out empty profiles, when there are thousands of already filled-out profiles are at their disposal?
If after you've paid, you can barely get a person to read your email, if a person who is willing to reach out to a completely unknown stranger for no apparent reason, then critical *critical* logic should follow that Zoosk are literally willing to accept ANYTHING as a real match.

2. They rely heavily on faked feedback loops. Feedback loops are when you get a "Like" or a "Comment" on Facebook. It keeps you coming back for more. Zoosk relies heavily on this pseudo-psychological element to whet your appetite. At first they'll flood your completely empty un-filled-out profile with people who are interested, then interest drops dramatically after you fill out your profile. "What happened? Did people just decided that they didn't like me? I have to investigate. I need to reach out to more people!" - proceeds to contact 300 profiles. Unintentional or otherwise, this is how it works out there.

These are things that keep people coming back to the site: "Did someone like or reply to my email?" Zoosk manufactures a ton of feedback loops saying, "A person has viewed your profile."

Everyone has to "view" whichever/whatever profile Zoosk decides to throws in their face. It's literally not an indicator of anything. If anything else, they saw your picture and thought they'd look at your profile based on age and location, since that's the only thing they have to go on anyway.

If you do the "Search" option, you are automatically presented with profiles, which you are now viewing. How Zoosk decides if what constitutes as a "view" is anyone's guess, but they've now turned you into "a potentially interested person."

These are not true indicators of any kind of real interest, especially if they're not followed up by any kind of real follow-ups. Zoosk feeds people's false hopes by telling people that people have viewed their profiles. What's worse is I think that there are probably some poor souls out there who actually believe that this is some standard way of flirting on Zoosk, and think that people are just being coy or playing hard to get. "I need to pursue this person harder! Oh! I know! I will buy them a gift!"
I wonder how many real matches resulted from some poor schmuck chunking out coins on gifts resulted in an actual date.

It's very common knowledge that guys who buy women things first, convey that they have no value and have to spend money in order to get women's attention. What's even more cheesy is the flip side of that, is if after you've gotten to know a girl on Zoosk and you buy her one of those one-bit cheapo digital gifts, then you really seem bogus. If you've gotten to know her, dude, show some originality. Buy her a REAL GIFT. Not some cheesy dating site unoriginal term of endearment. Some girls say they like guys to buy them a drink and some are telling the truth, but to be quite honest it's more of a test to see if you're "just another one of those guys who'll just buy me things."

Wow, where to start. I signed up because I read that it was the #1 dating app. I signed up for free and started getting messages right away (imagine that). However you can't read any messages unless you pay. I signed up so I could see these messages and decided on a 6 month membership because it was discounted and I figured it would take a little while to meet the a good match. Big mistake.

The so-called messages that I received were actually just "winks" and it is not clear if Zoosk were from actual people or just an automatic thing the site does to try to get people to sign up. The site seems to be more about chatting with people and the profiles usually have very little info.

I tried to figure out how to cancel but it was really hard to find any contact info. When I contacted them and they told me I had a 3 day window to cancel since I live in California. There was still 1 day left and I cancelled immediately. However I did not receive a refund. Apparently all this did was make sure that my membership did not renew automatically.

Since I had already paid I continued to check in on the site to see if I could make the most of it. Wow, what a total waste of time. In 6 months time and a significant effort I did not wind up meeting one person and it was difficult to even get someone to chat with me. There was one woman that did want to meet but she was frustrated with the site so she quit. She sent me her number before she quit but I did not write it down immediately and once her profile was gone so was the message with her number.

My membership expired recently and I checked back to see some of the messages that I had received but all the communication that I had over that time was blocked. I could see the messages that I wrote but all of the responses were blocked. How bogus is that?

I am on 2 other sites that do not require you to pay to contact other users. In the same time I have met several women from those sites. The information that people provide in their profiles on those other sites gives you a much better idea if you are a good match. One of the sites even matches you up based on a quiz that you fill out.

Bottom line, I would not recommend this site to anyone. It is worthless if you do not pay and not much better than that if you do.

Here's an update to my original review one month on (having cancelled my subscription!). It is an email reply from those low-life scammers at Zoosk, who I accused of mis-selling on the grounds Zoosk failed to make clear before I paid that I would only be able contact a microscopic percentage of the profiles on it. The first paragraph overflows with loveliness, though it's just words - they have absolutely no intention of creating a dating site with actual people you can actually date. The second one is where they legalise the scam - 'we've got you're money and there's nothing you can do about it.' OK, I've been scammed for £25 ($40), big deal, I'll get over it and learn my lesson. As for zoosk? Commercially, they're the equivalent of 16-year-old schoolboys who steal dinner money of blind 7-year-olds - scumbags of the highest order.

So...

'... Thank you for contacting Zoosk Customer Support.

I'm sorry that your recent experience on Zoosk didn't entirely meet your expectations. We realize that dating can be tricky. So at Zoosk our goal is to make things as fun and easy as possible. We are always working to maintain a community in which users feel comfortable to date their way, whether they want to browse, flirt, or find a soul mate. If you think there is something we can improve upon in order to provide you with a better experience in the future, please feel free to let us know.

Please recall that we displayed a confirmation screen before completing the transaction. This screen showed the total purchase amount, including all applicable taxes and Activation Fees. In order to complete the purchase you were required to view and accept this confirmation. We have established this confirmation procedure because all Subscription purchases are non-refundable.

We appreciate your interest in Zoosk, and we apologize for any inconvenience.

Best regards,

Zoosk Customer Support

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Shame you have to give this lot one star - they deserve a negative rating. Ultimately, this is a legal scam. 95% of all the people on Zoosk haven't paid, so can't reply to emails you send. The tone of their customer services emails is hysterical, e.g. we're the loveliest people on the planet, so just tell us how to improve and it'll be down in minutes', but the truth is they have no intention of doing a thing apart from grabbing your cash. It's a complete sham, so don't go anywhere near this lot.

I've been using Zoosk for about 3-wks. This was more of an experiment than anything else so my hopes were not high and I'm glad I didn't have high hopes. I paid to be a member, $100 for I think 6-months. I'm from NY. First, I approached all the women in a very respectable way, Hi, my name is so-and-so, these are my hobbies / interests, what's yours? 1 out of 50 times I get a response which is pretty bad. I get many views, but no one chats. I did send a blast to 10 women asking them to give me a simple "k" to let me know the chat feature is working and two responded so I know it works. I think the women / profiles are all legit but Zoosk are inundated with others guys or have already established chats with other guys. Women who do not join, which I think most are not members, have limited chat / messaging features - limited as in they can respond to a message 10 times or something like that. So women are even more picky on who they chat with. The other downside is, the women I see are mostly divorced with kids. Here's my estimate: 60% have kids living with them / divorced / starting over, 10% are ugly (sorry), 10% are in their 20s and 30s, and 20% are older than 30 (some are in nice shape). A lot of the women are looking for a serious relationship. I use this site as a test for my come-on lines and to build the nerve to hit on a hot girl in the real world. It's also interesting to see the background on some women and how they were treated. Some have massive chips on their shoulders. It's also interesting to see them describe themselves - nice, easy going, low maintenance - okay, then why hasn't some guy picked you up? My recommendation is, unless you have $100 to blow, it's not worth it. If you've got the cash then this might be a fun thing as an aside to do but you should be actively finding a live girl in the real world. I think of this almost like fishing, I put out 100 lines. If I catch anything, it's a bonus, but I always have a steak waiting for me at home. Hopes this helps!

My 1st personal add was in a newspaper 23 years ago where I met my wife. I am a widower. I passed on her add twice, she answered my add. I proposed at the end of our 1st date. Never regretted it for 1 single second. Zoosk do work.

But you will only get out of it what you put into your profile. The more you put into your profile, the more careful you have to be. The sites have one purpose, separate you from your money. If you get a full subscription with all the frills, your experience will probably be a good one. If you try to use a "bargain" subscription, everything is geared to get you to upgrade. Be aware going in.

I have proof on the mercenary methods of Zoosk. Here is what just happened to me. They will sell you "coins" which you can use to buy "gifts, services, and upgrades". I had a balance in "coins" that would pay for "read receipts" (has a message been read or not). You can use "coins" to buy a single "read receipt" for 35 "coins" or $14.95 in "coins" for the upgrade. My first time on Zoosk, I had bought the $14.95 upgrade. This was my 2nd time on Zoosk and I had not bought the upgrade. According to the support tech, they were "upgrading their services" and because I had bought the upgrade my first time on Zoosk, I could use "coins" to buy anything else on the site EXCEPT the upgrade that I wanted. The only way I could get a read receipt was to pay cash for the $14.95 upgrade. It took me ten minutes of rephrasing the statement before the tech agreed that I was correct. My number of stars just went from 3 to 1. I expect to be treated fairly (yes I know that is a dream). This type of treatment REALLY gets me angry.

I have to be honest. I have discovered that most of the original problems I had with Zoosk were because I did not update my e-mail forwarder when my IP host moved me to a new server so I did not receive the contact e-mails Zoosk did send me. I have had others agree with me that if you try a bargain subscription, then everything revolved around upgrading. You have no positive way to know if someone you have tried to contact knows you exists (this was my fault). The help is circular. The "support" people restate the obvious. After going around in circles, it became quite obvious that the entire site was designed to prevent contact and to force you to spend more money. I must give them credit for policing their site. I get far fewer "ladies of the night" and scammers than I did on Match.com.

I would like to extend a strong caution to the women. From the stories I hear, the scammers and men cheating on their wives is much worse for you. BE CAREFUL. There are good men out there (like me) but the people working the scams and hookers are extremely sophisticated and, I believe, are doing psychological profiling to target individuals. I put a lot into my profile and it makes me an easy target. I have had 2 hookers admit that they had been coached on how to approach me. But if you are like me, this is the only way of meeting anyone, JUST BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL.

I thought I had met a great guy online, but it turned out to be a catfish and a phishing attempt for money. His name on the site is: goodguydr, and he gave his real name as Gaufrid Arndt, 41, Rancho Santa Fe, CA. He states in his profile, he is a Christian, and tells a sob story about his ex taking his five-year-old girl away and that is why he moved to the United States, to get a new start. He claims he is a civil engineer, and two days after we started communicating online, he says he has an overseas job in Spain for six weeks. At first, everything was going well with his job, and that he may come back December 7. Then, a week or so later, he says his tourist ticket is on December 14. He complains of the cold weather in Spain and says he misses me. States he has a condo in Sarasota, Florida - but there are no property records of the purchase. He asked me to call him in Spain. We talked a little more than a week. The last few days, he started to hint at work difficulties, that there was not enough money, that he needed $2000 from his account in Florida. But he didn't trust his friends, and he has no family.

I was going to send him a handwritten letter but he refused to give me his hotel or his home address in Florida. After that, I think he felt he "hooked" me, and started to ask if I could ask others for money for him. Then he asked me directly, saying he is normally a very proud man, and it hurts to beg.

I blocked his numbers so he can't call me anymore. Asking for money is such a red flag. I hope no other woman falls for this scheme. He did what other dating scam websites said, he did direct me to start chatting on Yahoo Messenger instead of Zoosk.

He called me from a different number a few days ago. First, buttering me up, then the next day, pretending to be angry at my Zoosk review. I took it down, still wanting to believe this fantasy. But I've reposted it to warn others of this fake. And I blocked his number again.

I have talked to others, and Zoosk have had similar experiences. A Jamaican man living in Philadelphia, and then when my friend wanted to meet, he hesitated and made excuses. He, too, switched her to chatting on Yahoo Messenger.

Overall, it seems the quality of profiles are less than a couple free sites. Oh, and Zoosk will only take down a profile if there is something overtly offensive. Otherwise, they have to keep it posted. I had some difficulty unsubscribing from the website also. I had to call them directly to untangle the auto-renew.

I paid for a month on Zoosk (because if you don't pay, you go nowhere). Then I learned that I have to pay again for access to the men who pop up and show an interest in me.

To pay for what I thought I had already paid for, you need Coins. To get Coins, there is something called Carousel where you earn Coins by indicating YES, MAYBE, or NO when a random man's face pops up. Just his face. No profile info whatsoever. You can't read anything at all about him in order to make an informed choice. You can't get a Coin for a NO answer. You can only get Coins - which you will then use to buy access to the truly interesting man who is trying to reach you - by clicking YES or MAYBE.

Of course, to be fair, if you want to spend even more on this absurd site, you do have another option. You can outright pay cash for Coins.

So to whore your way to a bigger cache of Coins, you choose MAYBE for the 30 guys who look most like the man of your dreams and least like the man of your nightmares (30 is the minimum needed to pay to play as far as I can tell). You choose MAYBE even if the man in the picture looks like Dog the Bounty Hunter and you are hopinng for Atticus Finch.

Then later, when some of the MAYBEs contact you, and you finally get to read about them, you learn enough about them to smile, grimace, or scream.

Supposedly you can Chat with someone who is on line at the same time you are. But all that amounts to is sending him a message which he will see right away because he is on the site at the moment. This is not like a Live Chat with AT&T. If he's "Chatting" with a couple of other women when you send him that message, or if he's clipping his toenails but forgot to log out of his Zoosk account, Chatting is no different from simply sending him a message in the first place.

I am hating this site. I don't recommend it. I feel like I'm in a casino whenever I sign on. I won't be renewing after my month is up.

I joined for 6 months around the end of July 2017. I was flooded with views for the 1st 10 to 14 days. Almost 500 of them. If I deleted any, Zoosk came back. Funny how the views and the notifications are not in sync with each other. I also get notifications of views, but they disappear when I click on them, and a different view profile shows up.
Funny how there is no search function to view or contact a member by typing in a user name. That is a giveaway that the whole system is controlled.
You want me to spend another $10/month so that NON PAYING MEMBERS can read my messages? YOU ARE OUTTA YOUR@#$%&*@#$ MIND! Think about the logic here! Buy gifts? NOBODY CARES ABOUT THOSE!
My contact wall is beyond crowded. More than half of them I've never made contact with. All it takes is a view and any response, or a maybe both ways on carousel to wind up there.
The "Smart Pick" is pretty stupid! Not even close to what I'm looking for. How can you be positive or negative with a micro thumbnail picture that is hard to see, and notice that no user name is given.

Now for the positive.
I have had some responses to messages, ranging from they are already dating someone to back and forth chats eventually resulting in phone conversations with real live women. Although I haven't met my match yet, I have 2 lady FRIENDS that I didn't have before, and whom I can call anytime. They are "buddies". No romantic inclinations, but we think alike and get along, and there is nothing wrong with having good friends. One is local, and one is not.
The Carousel matches have been mostly pretty accurate except for distance. Just how am I going to cultivate a relationship hundreds of miles away, although closer distances that are reasonable do show up. 50/50 on that one.
I get many views from older women looking for a "Boy Toy". It seems that Zoosk generates quite a few views that really never took place, anywhere from 2 minutes to a few hours ago from launching the app, but not always showing in the notifications. More age appropriate women seem to be much less common.

All in all, credibility is an issue. Zoosk generates things to create an illusion of activity.
Yes there are real live good people there. You have to put in the time in order to gain anything worthwhile, but there are no guarantees. I'll do my remaining 5 months and decide whether to continue or not. Anything significant, I'll try to update this review.

Okay, I've been out of the dating game for a while - as stated in a previous review. I've been using Zoosk for about a month and I have yet to pay for the profile and after last night, I'm probably not going to. Please allow me to clarify:

So I filtered my search results two women between the ages of 24 to 37 in my area in a 20 mile radius.

Within 30 minutes I'd reported five profiles for reasons ranging from they'd been on there forever, seriously, good thing about living in a small community is that you know some of the people that are going to show up in your results, and some of them have been happily married for five or more years. So dead profiles. To catfish accounts, one of which was using a profile picture of Anna Paquin. And finally, the biggest red flag and the point I'm going to talk about the most are three accounts that belonged to minors.

One of these girls is a close friend's younger sister. She's 14 years old and supposedly verified her account via Facebook. She follows me on Facebook. Not only was her profile picture the exact same as her FB Zoosk profiles. Her account flat out says she's in high school. Earlier that day, she was talking about how amped she was to be starting her sophomore year.

So this begs the question, do Zoosk actually have somebody monitoring Facebook verification, or is it left up to some random bot?

And here's my biggest qualm: this is a problem that isn't difficult to combat. I mean, for crying out loud there's a good portion of groups on Kik that require you to send a picture of you holding a random object, touching your nose, or holding up a piece of paper with a time stamp and date on it.

Why is this concept so foreign to these dating services?

I'm a single parent, I've had to move around a lot the past few years, and my child is autistic. I can tell you that the sex offenders registry is ever-growing and very real.

So I wonder how a company such a Zoosk would feel knowing they were complicit in a potential assault because they neglected to actually verify a profile.

Honestly, I'm done with this app / website.

I tried to contact them via their customer service email and I was told that I would have to wait two to three days for a response and so I decided to try and get in contact with them via Facebook Messenger, only to have my conversation muted. That's the virtual equivalent of telling me to STFU.

There is no way they're going to be getting any money of mine. I suggest anybody who gets into the service takes a buyer beware approach.

1. First, I don't understand people that complain about spending a little money to potentially meet someone and yet Zoosk won't hesitate dropping $5 or $6 on a coffee drink. I spent $56.21 for a six month membership in Oct 2014. I actually called Customer Service to ask a question and he/she offered to drop the activation/registration fee ($25, I think), if I joined right then... so I gave it a try.

2. I knew I was in trouble from the very beginning when some Zoosk censor edited my profile. I can understand removing email addresses, phone numbers, profanity, etc. But all I put was "please be patient with me, I don't log on very often." They removed the "I don't log on very often", so it was "please be patient with me" which makes it sound like I'm a little "slow".

3. One of my pics was a chest shot (no frontal nudity) and they removed the pic, could never figure out why.

4. Like so many other reviews have stated, the Zoosk Coins thing is very annoying. It feels like you are being nickel and dimed, even after you have PAID for membership.

5a. The Carousel feature is very strange. You are asked if you are interested in someone based solely on their age and picture (pretty shallow if you are looking for something more meaningful). I thought it was a tool to learn more about your tastes, so the site could make more educated matches. I didn't know it was actually sending messages to the people I answered yes.

5b. Now the people that show up in this Carousel feature are no where in your immediate geographic area. So you could be responding yes to people in neighboring states. I live in Las Vegas and got messages from California, Utah, Arizona... most of the Western US. I don't think those other guys realized I was far away as well.

6. The chat feature is dumb. How hard is it to create a straightforward program to exchange messages back and forth? But somehow Zoosk managed to screw that up as well.

7. There's a SmartPic feature where Zoosk picks a potential meetup, you have 24 hours to reply. In the whole six months, I replied to approx. 20 but never heard back from one.

8. Like other reviews have stated, you do get lots of messages from other people but when you reply, you never hear back from them. Which makes you think the original message was a fake message generated by Zoosk.

9. I should have read the ReviewFeeder reviews on Zoosk before I joined. Oh well, next time.

ZOOSK... THIS SITE has the most unbelievable worst marketers on the planet! I have been a bar/casino beverage manager for over 30 years, and know how to market, and make you spend your money on a friendly, satisfied note. This marketing plan is so pathetic it is`nt even funny. Don`t you think that if you could read a message, and could see who sent it? If you are interested and have to pay to send one, it would make sense? So, would anyone pay? Without knowing who it is that sent it? It may be someone who is so NOT YOUR TYPE? It is such computer generated bull$#*!! Tonight I sent a wink to someone, and a message popped up on Face book that the person I winked at sent me a message... Sign up to read it. SO when I went onto Zoosk site to see who viewed me, that person had not even viewed my profile! SO, HOW COULD Zoosk HAVE SENT ME A MESSAGE WITHOUT EVEN VIEWING MY PROFILE? It is SO EASY to figure out, it is~nt even funny! Maybe if it was REAL and you saw that they viewed your profile, and you could at least read their message! Than it would be up to you, if you were interested enough to pay to be able to respond! Was on this site many years ago as a payed customer, & the people they sent me as my matches were NOTHING that I would ever be interested in.And now keep my profile up unpaid just to prove it is a BIG SCAM! Just put up a profile, don`t pay, and watch how many people have an interest in you, just by checking out their profile. If I could market this site as an HONEST business note with out scamming you, you would only spend your money if you were REALLY interested in someone, and people on it, would for sure find who they are really looking for! Maybe I should start a REAL HONEST dating site! F**k computer generated bull$#*! to try to rip you off! Think you all get my point..., BTW,,, If they send you something that says, a Zoosk MEMBER is interested in you, it maybe someone who is hot. BEWARE, as I believe that it is a ZOOSK STAFF MEMBERS PROFILE to try to SUCK YOU IN TO PAYING! Also I was on POF, when it was real and free. Now Zoosk has that one locked up TOO!

I joined as a free member and stayed that way for about a week and loads of people checked out my profile and sent messages I couldn't open. I also got a lot of the round robin type emails that get sent out and hopefully fool you into thinking you're doing even better than you are and tempt you to spend out on a contract.

I paid a months membership and sure enough there were some personal emails as well. I continued to get some good interest and yet decided I'd not stay with this site after a month as I have membership elsewhere.

I contacted their customer service to check that I would still have access for the remainder of my paid for month and was assured I would even though some of the info on the site suggested to me that you'd lose your fee when you cancelled. Zoosk cancelled my re billing contract (without me actually asking them to do so. I'd only asked a question). Now real issue here and I did indeed still have access as advised but guess what? This was a couple of days ago and I have had only two views since and no email or other contact from anyone! Lol!

The other strange thing was that when I joined as a free member (and I have to admit I was a tad cynical about this at the time) there was a very high proportion of profiles with pictures of professional quality depicting stunning women. I'm sure some of these were genuine :) However I have never seen this ratio of "supermodels" to normal mere mortals before.

Finally this happens in life I know. But it seems to happen on some sites more regularly and this site is one of them for me. Namely arranging to meet someone who continually tries to rearrange on you.

I've been on sites where this hasn't happened in years of membership. I've been on sites where it happens almost as soon as you join and strangely seems to happen most frequently at the end of the month when your fee is due. Someone pops up out of the blue and wants to meet you! Co-incidence maybe?

I sure wouldn't recommend this site, although I expect it works well for some.

I am a free user on zoosk, I think as other users have found out that zoosk.com is all a PURE SCAM and the whole think is geared up just to get your credit card details.

I had a user contact me, she has a attractive profile picture, but as a free user I could only read first 2 words of her message and to read the rest I need to paid.

Obviously I think she is attractive and would like to find out more, and this is how Zoosk get you hooked! I would need to pay to read her message. (I am guessing like someone on here said that if I did pay, soon after I do her profile will disappear from the site.

On clicking on her attractive profile image and reading her profile I soon had my doubts about it being genuine. The profile description did not sound right, with a poor use of english and dumb responses to questions, it did not sound like english was not her native language. Her answer for a first date was 'love and happiness!'

You want the person that contacted you to be real, you really do, but it does not stack up.

To confirm this I did a search on zoosk in my local area and found 2 profiles using the same profile image of the girl who contacted me.
Both profiles used the same profile photo of the attractive girl but they bothe had different dates of birth, different locations (same county) and different education details. One had degree, the other just college. I think they have slipped up here and this only confirms to me that the people working at zoosk create false accounts probably using peoples facebook images without their permission to lure people into subscribing so they can read and respond to the fake user.

I also found that the zoosk site lies about the status updates of users that appear on the sites home page. I have regularly viewed a profile I was interested in and that person has never updated their info yet the zoosk homepage says user has made an update to a part of their profile.

BE CAREFUL, ZOOSK seems bad news, I believe it is diss-honestly going about its business and do not think, like me that just because it has a TV advert it is safe, it is a SCAM business!

Zoosk is a horrible site, and crudely functional when compared to other free sites and paid sites. After 6 months, I was unable to generate even one date from this site which is a stark contrast to other sites, where I was able to connect and meet several in person within the first month of use. POF and OKQupid perform and function better than Zoosk even though Zoosk are free. Zoosk also employs manipulative practices to make you believe it is going to do something for you. There is this goofy popularity meter that reads high the day you sign up and high again when your cancelled subscription is about to run out but low the rest of the time even though the volume of interface is consistent the whole time. It is loaded with fake profiles (which are easy to spot if know what to look for), and you get inundated with want to meet requests from the most hideous looking, unkempt or obese individuals, most are many years older than you, and with a profile write-up that tells the story of a complete loser (many are too lazy to even put some effort into describing what they are like and what they are looking for). The messaging feature is strange. It is a single line text box where you can only see a portion of the current sentence you are writing, It appears to be designed for those who like to text in half sentence bursts and live through their smart phone. There is a "wants to meet" feature, but you have to decide only on their profile picture and very little more. If you both click someone has to pay to unlock the match to look at the others profile or communicate. I believe some of these are generated by the Zoosk site and not the one indicated. They also have this stupid gift feature that you pay to send images of flower, wine, etc. If you do choose to use this site, only use the message feature, as this is the only one I noted generated any response back. The other "make a connection tools" to show interest seemed to simply fall into a black hole. There does appear to be some quality individuals that use the site, who might be "keepers", but they are far and few between. It is not my location that is causing this poor outcome, as I live in major metropolitan area.

I was really let down as a new "paying" user of Zoosk. The first two woman who tried to contact me were online Russian Dating scams who were posing on zoosk as locals to my city then trying to scam me online for money. The System has been very unreliable in access and use, and apparently there are no checks on validity of the subscribers.

I see what I believe to be several devious business tactics in the operation of zoosk sites. You keep getting pop-up messages all the time (even after paying for premium membership) which are trying to compile information from you for marketing purposes, such as demanding a Cell Phone number for some supposed service while moving between screens on the system.

As I tried to unsubscribe in disgust, I was first forced into a Marketing Survey that posed only questions which would be thought of as "Positive statistics" for Zoosk. As a network admin and web dev I find this very underhanded and distasteful in a business process. Zoosk also doesn't give you a obvious means of cancelling out of these Screens, hitting esc does nothing, as a user you have to guess that just clicking somewhere else on the web screen closes the scam pop-up zoosk marketing screens.

I noticed that after I cancelled my account I was informed that I would still have access to my account until the end of the month (term I had already paid for), however when I tried to access my account I noticed it had been disabled, the same account login name and password I used previously would no longer work. I also noticed that after trying to cancel my account, I was suddenly blasted with all sorts of emails from Zoosk about scientific matches and hits, which appeared to me to be an automated process by zoosk in an attempt to lure me back to it's paid services. The appearance that you are suddenly getting a "bunch" of responses and hits while at the same time being unable to access your account during this last month termination period, seems to me an attempt to frustrate a person back into purchasing the service. These are very disturbing business practices built into this web service from what I see as a Network Admin/Web person myself.

I'm a single female subscriber who's gone back into the dating pool. And, what I have to say about Zoosk isn't at all flattering. So, I hope that Zoosk listens to this review.
When I signed up for the site I was really enthusiastic. But, over a period of three days I quickly began to see what Zoosk is all about. Though I received (literally) hundreds of views/inquiries within a few days, neither myself nor my viewers could maintain contact because Zoosk were not a subscriber. The initial $50 to activate and pay for a month is not at all worth the consistent let down of only being able to view hundreds of profiles of potential gentlemen that I can't chat with.
I called up the customer service line, and politely, calmly expressed my displeasure with the site and the lack of services. I asked if there was a survey line that I could leave a survey at or a department that takes suggestions. And, even though he was very polite in return and apologized for "me feeling that way" ( uh...), he sent me to a one-question survey line asking if the customer service that I received was satisfactory. Doh!
If Zoosk would allow subscribers to maintain a conversation with non-subscribers then the site would be well worth the money. Maybe they will have a "change of heart" in the future when they begin losing their subscribers. But, as of right now, in this turbulent economy where the middle class is shrinking and everyone who doesn't have money has to watch every red cent, Zoosk isn't ideal for people who actually want to meet new people. Maybe, if you wanted to blow $50 for a month's worth of pictures of people you can't actually chat with...

The simplicity of sifting through the large membership one pic at a time made it easy to establish physical attraction before either profile was read. This saves a lot of time wasted while waiting for a reply. Zoosk see your pic, say "yes" to meeting you, and then you can both look at the profile while you decide how to approach them, or IF you want to approach them. In my case, she had read my profile and contacted me. This eliminated the possibility that my first message went unread. She immediately replied and we had instant chemistry. The only reason I didn't give more stars is because you can't look at the profile before saying "yes" to "meeting" them online. You can't look at all their pics first either. The "yes" for both of you is based on one pic. It's not that the method is bad because it does what's intended. It gets you both talking to potential dates that are attractive to you. You can see the profile after you've both said "yes," before your first message anyway, so the best thing about it is that it saves ALOT of sifting looking for someone that wants to talk to you. In this regard, Zoosk is the best dating site I've found for that, but DO read the profiles first or you're going to fail to 1) Capture their attention by noting something in common between you, compose an opening message that gets them talking about something in their profile, or have anything interesting to say. 2) They might not be in your area. In my case I was prepared to go anywhere to find compatibility. That's what they make planes for isn't it? I was lucky enough she was in my area.
No more bullet points! Do your Carousel homework every day and start talking to them. Zoosk will do just what a dating site is supposed to do, but it can't accomplish it without two human beings that are attracted to each other interacting.

I thought I would give Zoosk a shot because I was hoping the quality of women that I would meet would be better than free sites. As well, I figured if women were paying for the site that would be more serious. I need to need 5-10 messages on free sites (Pof and Okcupid) before getting a message on average. I signed up for a 6 month membership. I wanted to meet women who were serious about wanting a long term relationship. I am on free sites Pof, Okcupid, Bumble and Tinder.
Zoosk is terrible. The response rate on Zoosk is worse than Pof and Okcupid. I am wondering how many women have paid memberships. The profiles are Zoosk are often short and don't have much of a write up. You get a notification from the system that you have a message when someone has liked you. Profiles on POF make you list your profession and your longest relationship. I will this feature because I will steer away from profiles of women who have not had long term relationships. Okcupid is unique because you have to answer questions about yourself. This is a great feature. I have had two long term relationships off Okcupid. Seriously, stay away from Zoosk it is a waste of money. I only met one person in 6 months. I think the swiping apps (Bumble and Tinder) are the way of the future. People always say Tinder is just a hook up site. I disagree. I dated a woman for 3 months off Tinder. I have found you can meet women who want long term relationship off Tinder. Bumble is fantastic because the woman has to make the first move. Women are more serious. Tinder you can send messages with no response ever. In summary, there are much better options that Zoosk.

This company's business ethics are morally bankrupt. Yes I had the same experience detailed by other people in these comments. After choosing the six month price I clicked in my credit card number and advanced to the next page where I was informed there was an additional fee of $25, "activation fee"... nice one Zoosk. Of course there is no "back" button, or "cancel" button so you don't know if you are going to be charged if you disagree to their tacky, tacky way of roping their customers into paying a charge that was NOT explained beforehand. Is that legal? The next day I received an email from Zoosk saying Zoosk would waive the activation fee if I registered and paid within 24 hours. If you do sign up, I recommend you do what I did (begin to register and then exit the page) and then register the next day to avoid the BS fee. The deal is, I don't mind if there is a fee but it is ethically wrong for Zoosk to keep it hidden until after your credit card number has been entered. As consumers, are we going to put up with this crap? Businesses that do this are slime and as consumers we should not stand for it.

A week or so later I said to myself, "OK dude get over your hissy-fit and just join. If it's a good service don't let your bad attitude about their ethics get in the way." So I did join and have been a member for almost six months. I have not received a message back from anyone I have tried to contact. That's OK. Maybe the people who are not members don't get the messages delivered to them. I don't know how Zoosk works. I'm not upset about that so much, but what bugs me is that they ask you to pay more to see if the person you contacted actually read the message. Or they want you to pay more to send it quicker…gee…I guess I shouldn't assume that once I've paid to be a member that I'd have full use of the service. No, they nickel and dime you for more. Very understandable in our business-before-ethics culture.

Also you can boost your "popularity" by allowing Zoosk to validate your phone number or photo but to do that they want to phish into your Facebook data. Maybe that's not such a bad thing but it's a turn off. Do they mean I'll be more popular, sexy or desirable if I share my Facebook data and friends list with them?

Oh…. I almost forgot, Zoosk automatically puts it's members in "automatic renewal" status. You get what that means, right? Zoosk automatically renews and charges your credit card when your subscription runs out. Lots of web based businesses do this. Zoosk does not give it's customers the option to approve or disapprove "automatic renewal." A business operating in good faith sends it's customers a message asking the customer to approve payment for renewal. Not Zoosk, as well as plenty of other businesses these days. Building customer "good will" means nothing to them. They figure, "well, if our customers forget to renew, we'll just charge them for the next pay duration…heh, heh." In order to quit, you have to go into your settings and "unsubscribe" before your subscription duration is over.

As to the actual functioning of the Zoosk website, I have really no idea. I didn't get a date or even make contact with anyone in the five and a half months I've been a member. So maybe it works fine, I don't really know. I'm not going to say the site doesn't work, but I will say strongly that for me Zoosk's business ethics are a real turn off to anyone who gives a damn about how they are treated. I was a member of Chemistry.com for awhile and I would say they are better at least in their business dealings.

I would give a HUGE 0, but you have to give at least 1 star. I joined this fake site 1 week ago, immediately started messaging back & forth w/ a "fake" guy that "lives" 83 mi away. I think this person is an employee to get me "hooked" to Zoosk, / the "fake" attention. I will NEVER believe this guy is real. The person I was "corresponding" with was. Very very good at seeming real, Zoosk are not in another country. I can't point to any one thing that raised flags, except that "he" seemed too good to be true; never talked money, or "love" --- just "enchanting", I cancelled my "stupid tax" subscription within a few hours. I also wrote to Zoosk-- told them they had better not continue my subscription. I also made 3 more fake accts... and wow! The phony "guy" sent my phony lady's messages within an hour or 2. I do have to add here, that I happen to know several guys (my age) personally on zoosk. I went to HS with them. And reconnected with 1-- so, there are real ppl on there. But all the comments below mine are TRUE. So, you have to take every single message with a BUCKET of salt. I'm also thinking this is true for EVERY dating site, same as "real life". You can't give your trust away, it HAS to be earned. I find online dating sites to be merely entertainment. It feels addicting, logging on daily to "see what cute guy might notice me". I imagine it's the same for most of us. so, in the meantime, no one is able to filter through all the phony's, liars, cheats,. And I think much of it may be good ppl. But no one can focus on the "new messager, bc we have soooo many ppl messaging, we don't want to ignore anyone. Etc, etc, etc",.

I was amazed at how many "views" I was getting. One woman I messaged, as a result, said she had NEVER viewed me. That indicates to me that there may be false "views".

I sent several messages which went unanswered. It appears that we are never told if the other party is a paid subscriber, so Zoosk can view our messages and chat with us, despite the fact we're prompted with "Mary Jo is on line now!" or "Denise has sent you a chat request".

One woman I was conversing with (she seemed to good to be true), had a profile which had facts easily verifiable on Google, etc. Nothing matched up. She also said she'd gone to school at the Univ. Of So. Cal. I used to work that neighborhood, so I asked her about her favorite eating spot, there. Her angry reaction was way overboard which indicated to me she lied about going to USC or she was fake, altogether.

Perhaps it works well when BOTH parties are real. It seems that Zoosk keeps encouraging us to spend just a little more $$$, every so often to improve our chances, yet the apple is always out of reach. I guess it boils down to I'm not that clever of a guy, so as I'm unable to discern the real from the fake, I'm going to save my money from now on and look elsewhere.

UPDATE (08/23/16): I returned, after six weeks, to Zoosk. It used to be you could apply "coins" (you amassed through the carousel game) to find out if the member you sent a message to had opened it. Now, they want an additional (almost) $10 a month to tell you. Just to see where things were I sent no less than 40 messages to local women, just saying hello and/or complimenting them on their profiles/photos. I got, perhaps, two responses - indicating once again, that these profiles are either outdated (one woman had replaced her profile picture with a photo from her WEDDING), unavailable, or for non-existent people.

Additionally, I had notifications that, "Two women want to meet you." It would cost 30 coins each to "unlock the contact", despite the fact these women had been easily accessible just in the days prior to this notification. I hit the "yes" button and reached out to them both. Four and five days without any feedback or contact, respectively, despite the fact I'd been told they wanted to communicate.

FINAL UPDATE: With about 13 days to go, until my subscription expired, I went ahead and left. I had NEVER heard from the two "matches" which I "paid" 30 coins each to make contact with. I sent out almost 100 messages to see what kind of returns I'd get. Less than 10% with only one local. I had two more notices saying "So-and-so is on line and wants to chat" I reached out to them both. They both denied wanting to chat with me. Perhaps they were chatting with others and "wants to chat" applies to that other party but not me, okay, then why tell me?

Perhaps the bottom line is this... I'm not handsome, desirable, mature or clever. Perhaps I am all those things. More likely I'm somewhere in the middle. I am tired of spending money, WHILE BEING ASKED FOR MORE, to get very little in the way of results. Best of luck to those who have had success, on Zoosk. I did not.

I have used other online dating sites such as Match.com and eHarmony in the past. Zoosk both provide good customer service in my opinion. Then I heard about Zoosk via email. What an absolutely horrible experience from an organizational and customer service perspective. It's generous even giving Zoosk one star out of five. Buyers beware. They are a nightmare to deal with.

I purchased a 6-month subscription around mid 2018. Just before my expiry in December 2018, Zoosk sent me an email offering me 25% if I renew. Along with the email, and just after my subscription expired, I also received notifications that people on Zoosk had sent me messages. So I bit and renewed again. Only to discover that I was charged the full amount for 6-months and the messages from these so called "people" appeared computer-generated?

So I attempted to contact Zoosk on both the non-discounted price and the assumingly fake profiles out there. They informed me that I needed to pay by credit card (which I did via PayPal) and gave no answer to the seemingly "computer-generated" email messages received from potentially fake profiles. I then contacted PayPal to at least recover the 25% off ($19) --- which they did.

About a week later, Zoosk emails me informing me that my subscription was cancelled, yet I paid for 6-months? So I called them. Zero help and wouldn't even allow me to speak to a supervisor. Exact words from the customer service agent were: "I spoke to them and they do not want to speak to you. Your account has been blocked as it is our company policy to close an account when a dispute is raised via a 3rd party." I then inquired that when I get my full refund via PayPal (for obvious reasons), what would stop me from re-joining Zoosk (just to see what he would say)? To which the agent responded, "Sir, you have every right to attempt to re-join, but there is no guarantee that our system will not pick it up and block you."

I'll end by saying I simply wanted to be treated like a customer who has genuine concerns and honest questions. Why they chose to skate around the "real truth" and force me to gain mediation via PayPal is mind-boggling? Save you money folks and happy searching.