Dating Service

Dating Services to be Wary Of!Be wise keep your Credit Cards at Home when visiting these places

Georgetown matchmaker Ann Wood keeps a computerized list of more than 100 companies that tried to break into the Washington, D.C area dating business over the past 10 years.

"They come and go," said the woman who has been in the business for a dozen years.

Only six out of 13 dating and matchmaking services listed in last year’s District Yellow Pages still have working phone numbers.

Many of the companies lured by the apparent demand for matches among the large number of singles in the region are finding competition is tough and keeping customers happy can be tougher.

Despite the failings, dating industry players contend the singles’ market is a booming business.

She credits her "personal touch" for her success. She does all of her own matchmaking and gives clients what she calls motherly advice.

Ms. Wood said the dating industry is benefiting because companies increasingly discourage dating between employees, and married couples seldom hold dinner parties to set up their single friends.

"You know who our biggest competition is?" asked Nancy Kirsch, vice president of the It’s Just Lunch dating service. "People’s mothers."

Carol Scott, the Baltimore-Washington area director for Together Dating, said she has seen the company’s national membership grow to more than 300,000 as the often-sullied image of dating services has improved.

The number of singles in the region is a key to the growth some companies are achieving. With more than 240,000 singles, the District has 12 percent more than the national average, according to the U.S Census Bureau.

The companies trying to cash in on those singles vary from traditional matchmakers such as Ms. Wood, who works by herself in a homey office with a kitchen and cat roaming about, to national video-dating services like Great Expectations, with its corporate office suites in Vienna, VA.

And although most of the privately owned companies won’t discuss their revenues, there is clearly a large amount of money changing hands in the dating business.

The largest dating service in the nation, Together Dating, has 10,000 customers in Baltimore-Washington area - all of whom are paying $1,500 to $5,000 for an undisclosed number of matches.

It’s Just Lunch - a national dating service with offices in Baltimore and the District - made $10 million last year, and the company expects that number to double in 1998.

For a one-year membership fee of $750 to $1,000, about 80 matchmakers or "director" in 25 offices arrange one-on-one lunches for busy professional people. Andrea McGinty founded the service six years ago in Chicago with $6,000 investment.

A new player in the dating scene, Renee Kostick, 30, of Alexandria, is also finding that singles hungry for love - and a meal - make good customers. Her alternative to the traditional couple dating scenario, Dinner at 8, was born last October with only eight clients and a $4,000 investment.

For a $100 fee plus the price of the two meals, the minimum required at sign-up, Ms. Kostick sets up her clients at dinner parties of four men and four women at area restaurants like the District’s West End Café or B. Smiths at Union Station.

It has since expanded to 300 clients in District and neighboring suburbs. Ms. Kostick holds an average of four to six dinner parties a month and the company’s success has prompted her to set a goal of six per week by her company’s first anniversary in November.

And there appears to be enough business to go around. Both Ms. Wood, a former newspaper reporter, and matchmaker Leora Orgel, a former lawyer who runs Leora & Associates in Bethesda, exchanged careers for full-time matchmaking.

"This is a really growing industry," she said. But, "If people go into it for the money, it’s the wrong reason. You need to like to make people happy.:

Evaluating how well the services work is difficult because each company defines success in its own way, ranging from the number of second dates to the number of marriages that result.

Only one service boasts a 100 percent success rate. Encounters International, which matches Russian women with U.S. men, guarantees nuptials within a year of membership or clients get their $1,850 fee back. After five years, the Bethesda company boasts 114 marriages and 57 pending engagements, according to owner and founder Natasha Spivack.

Two of her clients, Oliver Beale, 59, of Fort Washington and Irena Shumilova, 30, of Moscow, will be married at an open house held at the service’s offices on Saturday. Mr. Beale said Encounters International made this third marriage for both of them possible. "I’m very shy, so it was a necessity that I join an agency," he said. "I would never approach a woman for her name and phone number - I’ve never done that in my life."

Since 1992, It’s Just Lunch has made 4,000 to 5,000 clients happy - all the way to altar. With a District presence for the past five years, Ms. Kirsch said 61 marriages have resulted from these lunch meetings locally.

Dinner at 8 has an average of one couple per dinner that begin dating. One Annandale couple swears by their dating service, Great Expectations. Both divorced and in their 70s, Elinor Stroud and Bill Williams were having trouble meeting singles with similar interests when they joined the video service. Elenor was Bill’s first date with the service about two years ago, and they have been in a serious relationship ever since.

Many dating-service clients are also frightened by the anonymity of the Internet, and would not typically go meet with someone they encountered in computer chat rooms or respond to personal ads, Ms. Kirsch said.

Singles like John Soltesz go to dating services in search of the match of their dreams, but sometimes the service they experience as clients is quite different from the sales pitch.

"It was a rip-off," said the former Together Dating client from Catonsville, Md. Mr. Soltesz paid $2,595 for 18 introductions-16 of which he said he never received.

After his first six months with the Columbia, MD., office and correspondence with the Better Business Bureau, Mr. Soltesz said he was finally introduced to two women - both of whom were out of the geographic area he requested.

"I had to take them to small claims court before they came around [with a refund]," he said.

Eric Friedman, an investigator with the Montgomery County Consumer Affairs Division, said complaints are "inherent in this kind of business"

Written complaints center mostly on high-pressure membership sales, reluctance to match clients and unacceptable matches.

His office settled four dating industry complaints in 1997. An additional 14 were filed with two other Maryland consumer affairs offices during the year.

In Virginia, 31 complaints have been filed against Together Dating alone in the past three years, according to the state’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs.

The majority of complaints filed in Virginia and Maryland are against the larger companies with thousands of clients, such as Great Expectations and TogetherDating.

Residents of the District have nowhere to take their complaints, because that authority has been suspended until 2000.

Good customer service and a constant influx of new members will get rid of many complaints, said Michael Miess, Great Expectations Senior Center Director in Vienna. But he admits you cannot please everyone all of the time.

So, how can prospective clients be sure their dates are on the up-and-up? Ms.Kirsch said It’s Just Lunch’s membership fee excludes people who are not serious about dating.

"Nobody pays $1,000 to come here and lie. You can lie cheaper than that," he said.

At Exclusive Date Inc. in Baltimore County, President and Chief Executive Officer William C. Tucker said about one-third of his clientele opts to hire an affiliated private investigator to do a background check on the person they are dating.

"There’s so many risk factors in socializing [customer would ] rather have that person checked out," he said. "I advise that."

Great Expectations stands alone in that it is not a go-between and does not any matchmaking. All of its customers choose prospective dates from a book of photos and profiles and from watching other client’s videos.

Dating-service clients are not always happy with their own choices or the matches made for them, and complaints to consumer affairs departments persist. But before any service succeeds or fails, it first needs to recruit customers.

Eric Friedman, an investigator with the Montgomery County Consumer Affairs Division, said pressure selling is characteristic of this business.

Complaints on file with the county include failure to match within the time period specified in the contracts, "unacceptable" matches, and refusal to cancel contracts customers said were purchased under pressure from salespersons.

And the fly-by-night nature of some of the businesses has also harmed customers in some cases. In the early 1990s, Singles Choice closed down suddenly leaving about 1,000 members with worthless membership, Mr. Friedman said.

Even a satisfied customer, Miss Stroud, said a Great Expectations salesperson took her credit card and told her she could cancel later, only to find out it was too late when she called back.

Michael Miess, Great Expectations Senior Center Director in Vienna, says he is aware of the practice in dating industry, but his store does not partake in it. In addition to what consumer advocates call "hard-sell" memberships, the larger services have to overcome the stigma of being impersonal if they want to succeed.

"They don’t devote the personal attention to people," said Ms. Orgel about the downfall of some of the larger players in the dating game. "It’s almost the McDonald’s approach to dating - slap them together and move them out. You cannot survive in any business with that approach."

But the large companies like Great Expectations and It’s Just Lunch are raking in the dough, and saying the smaller companies are at a disadvantage. "Local [dating services ] can’t compete," said Mr. Miess. "The majority of our money goes to advertising to bring in more people."

Still newcomers like Ms. Kostick, who runs Dinner at 8 from her home, enter the dating business every year.

After selling memberships for Great Expectations, Gary Karr decided to tap into the dating market with his company, the Source for Singles, this January. After six months, his Bethesda - based service has attracted 160 clients.

"I said one day I should own a business like this and here it is," he said. "I think it is a great opportunity for me and a need for people."

5/7/98 Ripoff
A big victory for Arkansas consumers who claimed they were ripped off by a company they paid to find them dates. An agreement was hammered out over the weekend in a marathon session with "Together" dating service. As Dewayne Graham reports, the settlement comes five years after "Seven On Your Side" first investigated.

At one time, they boasted of being the country's biggest dating service with an eighty percent success rate in matchmaking. Not only did they run TV ads but they were in print as well as shown by this old copy of tv week. Bobby Jones is the first person who let us know that Together didn't stack up. His sign-up cost was almost $2000 and he got only two referrals. We accompanied Jones and his daughter to the office where Jones says he was high-pressured to buy Together's package. He insisted on a refund and after we spoke by phone to their home office he got it. But complaints against Together kept piling up. This man was the next to come forward with similar gripes about high-pressure tactics.

John Vreeland: "Then they made you fill out forms, then after the form, they tell you it'll cost $1350, after two hours."

John got only one referral and his potential date lived way over in Tennessee. He was denied a refund. Together produced a couple of success stories, one couple saying they couldn't have been matched more perfectly but complaints outnumbered successes. The Attorney General's office got involved but Together didn't flinch.

Scott Hubbard, Together dating service: "Several months ago we did have a request for some information and we replied with their request. We met with A.G.'s staff and I think everything is fine."

Wrong. The A.G.'s office sued Together and the two sides have filed motions since march of '94. This weekend, one day before going to trial, Together caved in.

Winston Bryant, Attorney General: "We have a judgment on record that will prevent Together dating service with their principals from ever doing business in Arkansas again."

"And more importantly, we're going to be able to refund those consumers who've been ripped off by Together dating service and make them whole again."

Thus ends a long five-year battle. At least 140 Arkansans will be getting a refund. Together dating service has packed its bags and left town. Dewayne Graham, Channel Seven News.