Plenty of Fish, Review
65Plenty of Fish, Review
Rating 1/5
(1 worst - 5 best)
Plenty of Fish has to be one of the most over used and abused dating websites. Wanna know why? It's absolutley free. A dating profile, for an intimate encounter, hang out, actual "dating", friends, email/chat, and long term relationships are the words that are supposed to let you know what that person is "looking for." But really it's just a sham, people do this for fun.
Really, how serious is a dating site that can take you 1 minute to put a profile up. Can't be that serious. What erks me the most about sites like this is the fact that the dude that created it is probably laughing about all of this. Apparently him and his girlfriend run the site out of their condo. Hundreds of thousands of dollars a day is brought in by advertising, and once I realized this it made me want to stop logging in, in the hopes of finding someone normal, but no. Finding someone on Plenty of Fish, is like winning the lottery, sheer luck. Forget probability.
Oh and the craziness of it all is the ads. The ads on this site are other dating ads, not to mention one of the creepiest dating ads I've ever seen--one looked like an inbred child with a mans face and pig tails and buck teeth. The other "real" or seemingly real dating sites that are atleast a bit more legitimate know that once you are on Plenty of Fish you will be so freaking annoyed with the opposite sex that you will need to somehow retore your faith and try out a paid dating webpage.
The only thing I can tell you that should make you think twice about being suckered into Plenty of Fish is, my friend and I call it Plenty of Freaks, it only gets worse from there. Be aware, and don't give out too much information to anyone on this site, well, any dating site for that matter. You just never know who you are going to run into.
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Comments
I'm Male. I tried the site. I am actually normal.
I agree with Tina
An absolute freak fest! I can only speak about the women since I'm a male, but man o man, they are bottom of the barrel. Lots of alcoholics, psychos, serial daters, gold diggers, mentally unstable or relationship-challenged indivinduals, etc, etc. Not to mention, they almost always lie about their age or body, and often post photos that are unrealistic or outdated.
Beware of cougars that post only blurry or obscured pictures or distant shots. Also, if they never stare directly at the camera and have long bangs covering their forehead, it is a ploy to hide their true age.
I totally agree with you. This site is ridiculous. Im actually starting to belive a ot of the profiles are straight up FAKE! I think whoever is in charge make up fake profiles just to advertise themselves. You never get a response even when you are as normal as normal can be. POF is the worse site ever people beware.
This has got to be the worst site in history. A person I know got hooked up with this psycho -- who lied continuously and always managed to make the other person look guilty. She turned the family against his sister who could see right through her and knew that she was a gold digger. The first thing she said was "I hope he doesn't loose all his money". His sister alerted him but she kept telling him that she was going to make him rich and later convinced him that this same sister was controlling him. She told him that she was planting seeds in his mind. He feel completely under her spell as she kept telling him that she was going to make him rich. These people should be reported on Plenty of Fish and banned.
I can prove that there is fraud on this site. I went on at about 2 am. and emailed a few women. When I then checked my sent messages folder, it claimed that all the women had "read" my messages. That is next to impossible, due to the fact I had written the messages at 2 am and I had sent the messages only about five minutes before they showed up as being "read" in my sent messages folde!!!!
Try it yourself.
Basically, it’s trashy. The forums, the admins, the clients are all low rent. I hope people will boycott the site.If your an educated, urban woman don’t waste your time. All you will get is a constant flow of sex laden emails from everyone on the site. The forums are filled with 50+ older women who spend their time insulting men. They look like hillbillies.Here’s their gimmick. They know that women are the bait, so they let women display just the most trashy profiles, pictures and thread posts. I mean your looking at trailer park trash at best.Don’t even bother. The admins look like homeless people, unkempt, illiterate, ugly men. This is how one of them writes .... mY jOb iz tO moRitOr. Totally pathetic site.
Most women on POF have teir expectations set a little too high. This keeps decent guys, who bring something to the table, from bothering with the site. Simply because they can do better elsewhere.
.Everyone talks about women putting up fake pictures or pictures that deceive their actual age. Well so do the men! The men put up obviously old pictures of themselves, and don't feel one bit bashful about doing so. Or sometimes they will put up one current photo, and a bunch of old ones too, and I guess they figure its okay if they do this. Seriously, what good does knowing what a man looked like 20 years ago have to do with now? If they want women with current photos, the men should do likewise.
I am so fed up with the forums and the moderators on plenty of fish. All of the sudden I find my self banned for no reason at all. I now find out that one of the mods pets claimed I was not only myself but also using another profile. Wtf! All they had to do was check my ip address to see if I was really this allav200 and they would see we are two completely different people. They did not even bother to take the time to check the ip addresses though. They just believe anything said by they favorites. Oh the moderators are very spiteful. My profile is still up and I can still click on a thread to contribute but when I try to post I get the message "messages this short may not be posted". Now I tried an experiment where I copy and pasted my reply over and over till it was too full to hold any more and still I got the message of "messages this short may not be posted".Those spiteful bastards found a way of banning me without kicking me off the site.
What a wonderful site where anyone can accuse anyone of doing and saying anything and you will be automatically punished without the retarded moderators looking for even a shred of proof that you are actually guilty. No these idiots just ban you without any proof at all , just the word of their pets.
Plenty of Fish is the most eleborate software programmed dating scam that uses fake dating profiles of men and women along with a "software programmed AI" system that automatically does the following: (1) generates fake "profile views" to your profile so when you "log in" it will show you some "women" or "men" that "viewed your profile recently". #2 When you email one of the fake profiles, ie, to some "woman" you'll notice your email is "read" or "deleted" or "read/deleted" within a few minutes of your sending it even if it is 3:00 am in the morning (the software automatically generates the "read/deleted" etc randomly to seem like a real person) is reading the message but it is not. It is just setting flags in a database - this explains why you email dozens of people yet get no "response" when you should be a perfect match for the women/man. #3 They used an automated method to "generate" fake profiles by "scraping" data from other dating sites, e.g. a computer program runs and hits specific dating sites, reads the profiles and adds the "member" to the POF database. #4 You'll notice that most women that email you are the ugly ones (the real members) #5 The big question for Markus Frind is (if his site is not fake) ... "Markus, please tell us how you went from 1 member to 10 Million members in a span of a few years with no investor money?"
Most of you are so wrong, I've met great people on that site and dating an amazing woman from that site now! I'm sorry to say but if you people would open your mind and heart to the possibility you would find out for yourselves.
I don't agree with Peter at all. The "great" people are the minority on this site. The expectations of the people on this site are so out of whack and there are so many misrepresentations that free is the only price I would pay.
I think too many people are approaching PlentyofFish the wrong way. They are going on there with the expectations of a paid dating site like Match.com, where there is high quality control of it's members. If you go on the site expecting a Match or eHarmony experience then of course most people will be disappointed.
However, despite the inherent disadvantages of using a free dating site, I think it can still be used to meet decent people, you just need a better and more efficient screening process. Sure it takes a little more time but on the other hand it's free. I find that once you get a great profile setup and tweaked to perfection, then it's just a matter of time until you're attracting quality dates.
I was a member of POF for a couple of years and also participated in the forums, where I met some genuinely nice people. However, late last year I started seriously corresponding with one forum member who gave the impression and appreance as well rounded crafsman and musician, his name was Akimmbo. After a couple of weeks of writing back and forth I said we should meet and he was very hesitate and said he thought it would be very romantic if we waited until Christmas, I thought it was odd, I even offered to fly down to where he lived, but no he wanted to wait. We continued to correspond for the next two months, which in hindsight was very unwise on my part, but I did. Finally Christmas arrived and the person I met was not the person in the pictures and I know that a look of shock was on my face because he asked if he looked like his picture and in being too stunned to answer, I said yes. In his pictures he was a tall man with golden hair and beautiful blue eyes. Well the blues were true, the man who showed up was short, with long hair (as in extensions) except for the top of his head which was completely bald, which I didn’t know because he always wears a hat or some how covers his head. If that wasn’t bad enough, the only way I can describe him is as a dirty old hippy who smelled very musty and his facial hair was so long that he would chew on his moustache. During his visit there were so many horrific moments I was in shock and I couldn’t believe I had such a bad choice. Some of the highlights were: He didn’t flush the toliet, he lived in his car, he had beeen arrested a few times and he had been put in a mental institution and it goes on and on. The reason I am telling this story is because, POF is now going to have an option where you can pay. The only thing you get for your money is a gold star next to your name. I wrote in forums that if the are going to charge they need to carefully screen their members so people like Akimmbo cannot pull his hoax on other women, at the very least no photo shopped pictures should be allowed. As I said I was a member for a few years, but after the nightmare with Akimmbo, I could not longer stomach being on POF and I quit.
Being too busy starting my career and still in school, and being that the majority of my friends are married and in toddler land, I found myself short of social avenues in which to look for Mr. Right. So, I took a gamble on POF and remained there for 2 years. I was a regular on the forums, and met a few people as friends and one turned into a long term relationship. Well, I am going to dispell a lot of the lies floating around on the 'net about POF in addition to corroborating some truths. Firstly, POF does not employ fake profiles in order to attract members. Secondly, they do not read emails of their members. Thirdly, the moderators are totalitarian, but often theyare directed to be totalitarian. Some take it to an extreme, and I was still a member when two were ousted. Sometimes, from what I have seen, they are forced to be by the characters that grace those forums. So, many of the stories you hear about "nazi moderators" have a lot of truth to them. With that said, there are so many mentally imbalanced people on that site and being there I discovered what exactly this practice of "flaming" and "flamebaiting" was. I never knew what they meant before POF. Suffice it to say that I understand why some forum members and those seeking online dating sites are single and having a bit of trouble finding a mate in the real world.
POF is not a democracy. Actually, this concept is not at all unusual in forums online that are privately owned. Still, it is draconian (the rules, that is) and the way in which they are employed, interpreted, and the inconsistency of both make it a very dangerous place to be. To me, POF, especially the forums, was nothing more than an online bar where you run into a lot of wierdos, people with serious issues, and liars making themselves out to be something and someone they are not. The cherry is the bouncers (mods) who are underpaid (read: not paid) and not trained in the art of formal moderation.
If I ever find myself single again, I will not be going the POF route. The management is amateur, and the quality of people are suspect for both men and women. I cannot count the number of times I got the standard "Yo, wanna chat?" emails. Yes, for anyone wondering, they did receive a "read/delete" response.
I haven't found a fair and balanced review of POF online, and hope that this will suffice for many. A lot of the bashing of the management is appropriate, but a lot are sour grapes from people who deserved to be booted too. Believe me, I've seen the idiots on the forums. Many times the only adequate management response was to unceremonially toss them. Still, on the other hand, there are a few moderators that even I think are power hungry, rude, and draconian.
For serious people, my advice is to keep your presence on the forums limited. Also, be sure to check into the person you meet, as 2 of the men I met were not employed as they stated (or unemployed altogether), one hid his children from me, which I would think is important when considering whether or not to date someone, and yet another confessed to me that he severely beat a man with a bat because he insulted him. Really, the quality is just as varied, if not worse, than meeting your significant other at a club.
I've already seen people "subscribing" to this "paid" service on the "100% FREE" Plenty of Fish site. It's so funny. Hmmm... It looks like Markus Frind is going to have to change all of his marketing strategy now since he's operating a "opt in" PAID dating site (like the ones he LOVEs to bash)... How laughable... As it is no one is serious on the site, now he's finally "acknowleged" that by adding a "pay service" to "prove" people are "serious" about dating on POF...That's such a good belly laugh... hahahaha...First a few months ago, he tried to launch a rediculous "feature" where the POF suckers would pay $10-$30 to send a "virtual gift" to the women that are already "ignoring" the men, then when that failed miserably to a huge backlash, now he launches a monthly paid dating feature just so you can have a "gold icon" next to your picture (and STILL get ignored) ROFL... POF is going to implode eventually. They already are running algorithms to operate the millions of fake profiles on the site, remember right on POF's home page Frind states:"3. Our success rate, matching algorithms and technology is unmatched, we are the only dating site capable of generating matches in real time. At 26 my algorithms and their results were cited in the Nobel Prize of Mathematics (Fields Medal) paper."Hmmm... algorithms... just like the AI ones he made that operate the fake profiles that don't respond to emails...Also, another point that proves he's full of shit and fake profiles is this statement on your "Sent Emails":"Hey if you see unread deleted don't be disappointed, some users (.01%) get 100 new emails a day if they have a great picture up. People like that don't have time to read your message even if they wanted to."Right, so all of the dozens of average-looking, non supermodel women (the majority of POF women) that you emailed on POF are all the "(.01%) get 100 new emails" and getting 100 emails a day? What a joke.
I just found this article on the web about "paying to be serious" on Plenty of Fish:http://dating.about.com/b/2009/03/09/pay-to-be-ser at posts #7, #9 and #10:#7 Don’t be conned. Plentyoffish.com is assigning those badges to profiles (only women that I know of so far) that didn’t ask for or pay for them. Some I talked to simply found them on their profile without being asked. Several women that I communicated with said they didn’t want them, when approached by Big Fish (presumably the site owner), and had them placed on their profile anyway. Emails to the site operators to remove them were met with silence.It seems that PoF is trying to drum up business, particularly from males, by giving away these badges. I find that to be fraudulent as it is intended to be a filter: only those who are serious about finding someone would pay. “If you want others to know you are serious and you’ve put real effort into finding someone then you should get your serious member profile upgrade. Take a look at some of the screen shots below. Think about it, do you take people more seriously if they have paid for something?”#9 Here is PoF’s response regarding my complaint about the women with the gold seal not having paid: “Free upgrades were awarded to random members chosen by the system that have proven to show regular activity on the site and good behavior. Users that we would consider to be Serious Members. Those that are not in agreeance with the label email us and we promptly remove the status from their profile. You can rest assured that after two weeks time, those users that do not see themselves as Serious Members are likely to have contacted customer service and downgraded their status, leaving you with a more defined idea as to who is serious about dating.”#10 I showed PoF’s response to one of the women with the “Serious Member” who didn’t ask for it (and who has been trying to get it removed for a week) and she said “Wow what a bold faced lie.”Interesting yes...? Hmmm... “Free upgrades were awarded to random members chosen by the system that have proven to show regular activity on the site and good behavior.”Sounds like Markus Frind is up to his old tricks again, now having the AI system upgrade the real female members and leaving the "fake" women AI accounts as "not serious" ...
Plenty of fish well let's just say the people that run it are a bunch of self rightous Homophobic Bigots! They block anyone that doesn't meet there standards I hope this site sinks Fast !!!!!!!!!!!!
Meredith_A_Iager's comments about POF are overblown and incorrect. You would think she is a promo for paid dating sites.
All dating sites have fake members.
All dating sites have members who are insincere liars who play mind games.
Many dating sites have forums that are moderated by prudish Nazi like people because they dont want negative comments affecting the viability of their site - so they are never free speech forums.
There is no difference between plentyoffish and any other dating site, except......you dont have to pay anything to contact someone. there are plenty of real people on there.
There is no point is saying one site has better quality of members, there is no way of measuring that. And most poeple on one dating site, usually have profiles on multiple dating sites. Wake up! Its just the same bunch of people!
The reasons for peoples failures on net dating sites is all to do with the members themselves, it has nothing to do with the site itself.
Those are the facts. I know.. ive been doing this shyte for a decade. And yes, im still single. IT doesnt work.
Many of the girls on the site &/or profiles are fake to get guys interested in it ... notice the ones that are hottie ones wih lots of pics ALSO are on ALOT members favs list ... I believe a number of the profiles are fake
What a silly posting. Someone who writes paid articles for way below minimum wage is "furious" that Markus is making thousands of dollars a week off of bit of clever, simple html.
POF isn't a scam. If there are two many "weirdos" there then that's 1. either an inherent problem with a free dating website where people will create silly profiles 2. an inherent problem with online dating in general (correct)
POF is the worst site, well one of the worst. I was on the site several months ago and chatted with several woman. I meet one, who I really wasnt interested in. She was very beautiful, but way to shallow for me. Any way, after that I didnt even bother logging in for more then several months. I made up my mind to give it another shot. WOW, worse then ever this time around. Half the woman dont even read your e-mail's and then delete them BEFORE even reading them. I had a few I was e-mailing back and forth and soon as it's like "Can I call you", you never hear from them again. I agree with the statements of the lower end. I mean if your looking for a girl with pictures at the local dive bar, POF is the place.
I thought women had they're expectations set a touch too high compared to similar women who are NOT on POF. I also thought there were too many guys trolling for sex. I expect those two things are related ... but likely a chicken and egg thing.
Anyway, to be successful on POF, ya pretty much have to adopt the lowest common denominator approach. If you're OK doing that, POF will probably work fine for you. BUT it's not really a site for "long term potentials", but it could happen.
I have read the comments on here and totally agree with 80% of them.I joined POF back one yr ago and met some players and gold diggers.Pretty much the same as Match or Yahoo but they were paying sites.Most of the women did not look like their pictures and were fatter or looked way older in person.Seems no one was serious about long term relationship like I was looking for.I was going to delete my profile on there in a couple of days because I gave up all hope. Then a new member who just joined wrote to me and we exchanged a few messages.I called her on the phone and set up a date.We met and she was prettier then her pics on profile.We went on three dates and decided to delete our profiles.We have been together for 10 months and very happy.I know the dating world is rough and time consuming.But you just have to weed through the garbage and you will find the right person.
POF is a horrible ineffective dating site. It's that way by design. The goal is too minimize effectiveness and usability as much as possible while still retaining a user base BUT maximizing ad revenue. In POF's case most of that is achieved by refusing to provide any significant user base segmentation and cross match capability that is commonplace on paid dating sites.
Most of the complains and problems people have with the site is a result of the above. It's by design. The side bonus is an increase in frustration levels which oddly enough, at the right level, will increase a persons desire to continue using the site.
It's hilarious that people fall for this is such high numbers. It's textbook trivial math and psychology.
Stating the site is free is also hilarious, as most people will easily burn up more than enough time using the site, than what it costs to use a paid dating site which is designed to minimize wasted time. Unless of course your time is not worth anything. Effectively people are working for POF at the rate of about 50 cents an hour, that's what your time is worth to POF.
POF is essentially two walls of photos (male/female) with a series of gauntlets in between. It's like leading mice trhu a maze to get the cheese. It's blanantly obcious what is done. Ad revenue is also maximized by ensuring long standing members on the site ... due to its' ineffectiveness.
The place POF has little other choice but to become no more than a hookup site because to get past that frustration sex is the only motivator.
I have tried, POF, Match, eHarmony, Yahoo Personals, Christian Cafe, SingleC, and a few others. I think all pay internet dating sites are over priced and attempt to lure people into thinking they will find Mr or Ms Perfect which is not true. Truth is, you don't need any Interent dating sites to find someone to date and fall in love with, if true love is what you are looking for.
Tina says:
17 months ago
You nailed it. The site is a money maker for the owner....PERIOD and he is laughing all the way to the bank. There seem to be very few normal people on that site. First of all, it's tough to get a response to e-mails. The expectations are so high and people are searching for supermodel and GQ guy types. Then, when you do meet someone either they are out of work, members of AA, bi-polar, morbidly obese, much older than their profile states, and the list goes on.
Stay away from the forums. They have a never ending list of rules and some truly nasty individuals in a clique that dominates the forums and gets anyone who disagrees with them suspended. This site definitely wins the award for the worst dating site on the internet, bar none.