Abacusdating.com

Abacusdating has major problems. For £9.99 a month you can search using criteria that includes the standard "age", "body-type", "smoker/non-smoker", "drinker/non-drinker" and "location". There are some other advanced features which aren't very useful either. To find you perfect bed-buddy or true love this is all you have to go on for your initial search.

Once you've entered the search criteria, you'll be presented with a list of potential partners.

And there's bad news for men using Abacusdating. At the time I had an account (January 2003) single males looking for single females in the UK using open search criteria would find just 107 heterosexual women. But it's good news for single females looking for single males in the UK will find 5694 men!! Men face huge competition and little choice men will probably get their profile lost in the masses. Women have a great choice.

Despite the options for women, all users must expect terrible service. If you join for just a month, don't expect any warnings when your month is about to end. And when it does, Abacusdating will charge your card and keep your membership going without notifying you.

Automatic renewal is in their "terms and conditions" - so if you forget to cancel and want your money back, they won't give it to you. Unlike Adult Friend Finder, there was no way of turning auto-renewal off.

If you want to cancel your subscription there is no email address or any other way of contacting Abacusdating, except an online feedback form. Once sent, you'll just have to wait for them to get back to you.

I had problems with cancelling membership from my account and deleting my profile. I had no choice but to write directly to them, and wait until they sorted it out.

Your user account is easy and simple to navigate, uploading pictures is no problem, and if you do this, you will be advertised on the frontpage for a day or so. People who click on your profile are called "admirers" and appear on a list on your account. This way you can see who has been checking you out. But this has the drawback that you can't look at others' profiles without them knowing. There's no privacy in that regard. If you've clicked on a profile, that person will know.

There is a mailing service which allows you to email other users so long as you are paying, but it is unclear how secure any communication is.

All in all, poor search criteria, poor service, lack of notification and poor choice (if you're a man) means Abacusdating.com isn't worth the time, effort or money.

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Last update: Saturday, March 22, 2003 at 4:39:07 PM.