Online Dating Blog

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The dating services present this as a benefit by saying you’ll not miss out on any opportunities. However, that doesn’t make all that much sense: it’s not as if all the singles will disappear when your subscription ends.

Preventing Dating Service Auto-Renewals

There are several approaches to preventing auto-renewals and some sites make it more difficult than others. While I can’t make and guarantees, the following steps should prevent auto-renewals from occurring:

• First, and perhaps the easiest way, is to simply cancel your subscription. This might sound like a rash thing to do but it’s not due to the way dating service subscriptions work. Dating sites don’t refund unused time which means when you cancel, you are still able to use the service for the remainder of your time. Sign up for six months and cancel immediately? You’ll still have the service available to you for the full time period.
• You can change the auto-renewals settings in your dating service…although some services don’t even offer this as an option. Others do offer the option of turning off auto-renewals but the setting can be notoriously hard to find (which is why I don’t list this as the first option). As an example, eHarmony has auto-renewals under the Account setting link and you will want it to be set to “Set to Expire”
• If you aren’t comfortable with cancelling your account but can’t find settings to turn off auto-renewals, you can try to remove your credit card that the site has on file. Some services will not allow you to remove a credit card if it is the only one of file. If you run into this situation, you can try to add an expired credit card and then remove your original card.

Keep in mind different services handle cancels and settings changes differently. Some services require that settings be changed over 24 hours in advance to really take effect. Because of this, my recommendation is to make your changes early on so you don’t forget and so you don’t miss some hidden window of opportunity.

Thoughts on Auto-Renewals

From a business point of view, it does make sense to have auto-renewals. They want you to continue to use their service and for short-term subscriptions it may even make sense for the customer (although if you are consistently paying month-to-month you would save yourself some money by switching to a 3 or 6-month plan).

At the same time, though, these auto-renewals are one of the biggest complaints about online dating services. Not just because you can find yourself with large charge from a service you total forgot about. It is also because if the services work as well as they should, the site assuming you would need an auto-renewal of 12-months after your first 12 seems a little unreasonable.

In general, I think it takes longer than a month or two to get your head wrapped around dating online and finding real success (not just the first person who is willing to spend time with you). My recommendation to everyone is sign-up for three or six months and the make sure your auto-renewals are off. This way, you give yourself a real opportunity to succeed but at the same time when the subscription runs out you are able to judge for yourself if you want to continue with that service.