A handful of emails and a few comments over at a blog post I wrote in March of 2009 (Pay To Be Serious at POF), led me to check out Plenty of Fish today. I'll quote one reader by the name of Pete to explain:
"Effective today 12/6/10 in Vancouver BC, Plenty of Fish is now charging user fees for anyone wanting to communicate to each other from their website."
Another user by the name of William copied and pasted the message he received when he tried to look at the list of folks visiting his dating profile page:
"To see if any user has Read or Deleted your messages you need 1 goldfish credit which works out to about 8 cents. 1 goldfish credit will unlock this feature permanently for all messages you have sent."So, I went to investigate. I tried sending messages - no problem. I tried looking at whose looked at my profile - no problem. Perhaps I have an old account, maybe only gents are targeted to pay, or perhaps it's a test run. Either way, I wasn't asked for credits.
How about you? Have you logged onto POF recently and been asked to pay for credits, accumulate credits, or get a membership? Should I remove Plenty of Fish from my top free dating site list?
***Update***: After a bit of sleuthing, I found the new credit system. It says that if you purchase credits, you'll be able to see the status of your sent emails (read deleted, not read, etc.), purchase POF gifts, and "break the ice creatively"". Cost? $10.45 Canadian including GST for 100 credits, $19.90 for 215 credits, and $39.85 for 500 credits.
$9.95 as a down payment on a full featured account? POF is no longer free. Remove it from your list.
I noticed that also you need 1 goldfish credit to have the read unread deleted option. Then I noticed in the send a gift section I had 10 gold fish credits.
The catch is that there is no way to get to those 10 credits! JUST ANOTHER SCAM!!!
They really knew how to hit us and make an impact! As many messages are deleted, or not read, we now have no way to know where we stand unless we pay, next to cutting off the comunications completely, this is the best and most effective way to interrupt our communications and force a paid subscription. When I viewed all my messages with SHOW next to them, I was furious. If they were changing to a PAY site on the DL, they should have notified everyone their message notifications were going to be BLOCKED as of a certain date. This did not happen, they blocked everything and said, pay now, or just hope your messages are read, because we will no longer tell you unless you PAY!
Bob
PoF is no longer a free dating site. Remove it. The goldfish are cheap, but so is the advertising. Actually, it just became dis-honest.
POF is a garbage site. Always has been. You get what you pay for. I pretty much just use the site as entertainment now or to cure online boredom. To charge for knowing whether someone looked at the message you sent them is pretty pathetic
I’ve been using PoF for several months and never run into any pressure to pay a cent. The only “trick” I’ve seen is that they sometimes, not always, delete an email address if I try to move the conversation elsewhere. But they have never deleted an email address when I substituted ” at ” for “@”.
Nor have I found any differences in what the ladies say about themselves and what turns out to be the truth. On the other hand, I’m looking for someone my age – past 65.
I think a lot of these complaints are just sour grapes. Hey, if you want to be a complainer, don’t expect people to be happy with you. And if you are looking for more than friendship, say so up front so no decent people will waste their time on you.
Hi there,
I would say pof is far from a free dating site and yes you should remove it. The site has recently asked me to buy credits in order for me to see whether or not my sent messages have been read, unread, deleted etc and therefore not free as far as I am millions of users are concerned. I do hope they lose custom as per usual they are out to make a few bob!!
if we cannot use your i, m system , and see if we have had our messages read for free, im leaving this site, and i must say up to this point , this was always my favorite, but this was a joke the way it was handled! i want my im restored free and to be able to read if my message was read, deleted, or whatever, i will leave if thats the way youre going to treat us. this is good free fun for us and good advertising for you~~~the way it WAS. It now seems dishonest on your part ,,the way you are treating us!! thanks, s
i was a little miffed but then thought: does it really matter if you know that the meassge was either “read”, “read+deleted”, not “read+deleted” if the user you sent an email to doesn’t reply back?..
still, what a sneaky way to drum of some cash and so much for being a “free” dating site…so yes remove POF from your list…
Free dating site? I don’t think so. It looks like POF is moving in the direction of a full blown paying site. When it comes to online dating, communication is key, not knowing if someone read or deleted your message without readig it kind of interferes with communication, and really destroys your chances of knowing whether someone is interested or disinterested.
The people I have met on POF all have been nice to date.
That being said, POF the Gold Fish “Fine” hit me like a TURD in
The Puncbowl!! Please Eject them from you’re Site! I guess
The Suits a POF don’t believe in a NOTICE that changess are
Gonna take place
I tried POF a few months back and found it difficult to get own their website.I filled out all information and it would take me back to the sign in page only without going anywhere else.When a dating wewbsite advertises “Free” i expect it to be just that with no other crap.I would not try this site anymore period because it has become a scam in my opinion.Their rules now are confusing.Take them off as a free dating website.
This just ridiculous of POF, it’s not like they are not making enough money from all the adds on their page ! another way to suck peoples money. Shame on you POF.
Nothing is free in this world.
POF Is one site with the most number of unavailable women
able women all in one site in the world
Folks, if someone doesn’t respond to your message you can be pretty damn sure that they aren’t interested.
There’s absolutely no need to pay “goldfish” credits to find out the obvious.
I would like to no why i was billed 91.98 on Nov 09 2011
I would like to no why i was billed 91.98 on Nov 09 2011
As of today…March 12th, 2012, POF is charging to see if anyone has viewed your profile…Free Dating Site…I don’t think so…
Well…Just went to my POF account and now They want to charge users to see who has viewed their profile.
That’s pretty lame for a supposedly “free” dating site. Don’t they realize that if they keep doing this kind of s**t, everyone will leave and they will not have a site for their advertisers.
I’d say its time to start going elsewhere. The quality of their site is not worth a cent.
It’s certainly time to take it off your “free” dating sites list.
I KNEW THAT WAS COMING THE CHARGE HAVE YOU SEEN IS WELCOME MESSAGE THAT’S ENOUGH TO TELL YOU ITS RUBBISH HES GOT ATTITUDE PROBLEMS WASN’T A BAD SITE BUT ITS GONE DOWN HILL VERY QUICK AND IT GOING IN MY TRASH CAN TO MANY GOOD FREE SITES OUT THERE WHY PAY POF THAT DOESN’T TELL ITS MEMBERS WHAT ITS DOING HE NOT VERY BUSINESS LIKE IS HE WISH YOU ALL BEST FOR FUTURE MARCUS LOL YOU NOW DEEP IN MY TRASH CAN
GOOD READ ABOUT POF OWNER
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090101/and-the-money-comes-rolling-in.html
try http://www.okcupid.com/ it’s still free. I always used both of these siites but I think it is time for me to delete my pof profile
Well I have to say it was the best site until recently, but now they are kind of crazy. This was free and I have to say you can still send an email to some one for free. The site hasn’t really improved but they want to charge for things that were free before this week. POF was a site you could count on but greed has now taken that away. POF must have hired the same consultants as Netflix. I am now hoping for the same result.