PlentyOfFish Review

PlentyOfFish is a hugely popular dating site that I was pretty keen to try out for a month. After all, you don’t get that big and popular unless you’re doing something right, right? Wrong. Do not use this site. It’s not free like they contend (unless you want to deal with a bunch of crud), most of their inflated membership numbers profiles that are abandoned or fake. Or, if it is a real woman who happens to be attractive on the site, you’ll never hear back from her because she’s likely overwhelmed with attention from thousands of guys relieved to find an actual human ont he other end of their search.  The site is terribly designed and difficult to use, despite having a bankroll that should allow them to hire some top of the line designers. I’ll get into the specifics throughout this review, but there’s the Cliff’s Notes version. If you want a good free dating site with real people, no hidden costs, and a slick design, I suggest the recently reviewed site FindLove.

ABOUT

The first thing you do on PlentyOfFish, just like most online dating sites, is begin filling out the initial questionnaire for your free initial membership. PlentyOfFish’s questionnaire isn’t exactly comprehensive, and you get the feeling like the site’s matchmaking is pretty much solely based on setting you up with anyone that happens to live within a hundred miles of you. I’ll get into that more a little later, but if I can give you a little piece of advice here – if a site doesn’t care about your interests and what you’re looking for in a potential mate off the bat, it’s not a good sign. It took me about five minutes to breeze through the free membership creation, and then it brought me to the search page. As I mentioned above, there were pages and pages filled with women that were super attractive, so at first I was really gung ho! Lastly you’re supposed to describe ourself in one hundred characters or less, as though that can give anyone a good sense of who you are.

I began sending out my simple “hello” email form letter that I use for all my dating site reviews. It’s a simple, getting to know you sort of letter that expresses my interest and asks that they email me back if they’re interested in getting to know each other a little better. That first night I sent out about 40 of them over a half hour. Normally, in other dating sites I’ve reviewed, there are always some women who are online and respond that first night. However with PlentyOfFish, only one woman responded, and she turned out to be a prostitute using the site as a way to meet potential clients. I thanked her for her offer, but politely declined. Other than her, not a peep from one of the thirty nine women. However, I went to bed that night filled with hope that the site would come through eventually.

DATING FEATURES

The website itself is free off the bat, but it turns out that if you want to maximize your usage of the site, you have to pay. However, you can stick with the free membership if you want – you just have to deal with constant ads and banners flashing across your screen the whole time. It’s annoying! Otherwise, the site’s got a pretty basic set up – the search pages and the email feature. Most sites have other features which can compliment a site, but this site seems determined to keep things basic. Personally, I found their lack of other features mystifying, especially considering their popularity! If you do upgrade your membership to the paid one, then you get a profile that will show up first on people’s searches, get more message capacity in your inbox, you can member’s extended profiles, and can use the site without the ads and banners distracting you the whole time. Here’s the pricing breakdown:

PRICES

3 Month Membership: $9.80/Month

1 Year Membership: $5.95/Month

DRAWBACKS

Well, as you can tell from my review so far, there are quite a few drawbacks to this site, but let’s start with the numbers. Over the month I spent an average of about forty minutes on the site every day. I sent out 209 emails to different women over that time, and over thirty days, got 29 responses. As I mentioned at the outset, I believe that PlentyOfFIsh is super saturated with abandoned, fake, and prostitute profiles. The abandoned profile problem would be easy to clear up if they’d just put an indication on each profile saying when the person last was online and using their account. That way, if 90% of their members aren’t using the site anymore, WE’D SEE THAT, and choose the 10% that are still on there looking for dates. Secondly, the ads and banners are so annoying it’s distracting. I know that these “free” sites have to get their income from somewhere, but since they have a paid membership upgrade and “millions” of members, you’d think they wouldn’t have so many ads. Lastly, the site is too basic. For one of the biggest dating sites in the world, you’d think they’d have more options and features.

REVIEW CONCLUSIONS

So, of the 29 responses I got, I ended up going out on 11 first dates. Of those 11, I’d say that I had a connection with four of the women and would date them again. For all that time and effort I put in at the site, this is a terrible return on my investment. I asked all the women that I did go out with about the site, and ff the 11 women I went out with over the month, all of them said the amount of emails they get from guys is too overwhelming. Once they see a woman is still online and using the site, they get bombarded with invites for dates. Then their inbox is too filled to get through, and they end up just choosing whoever happens to be at the top of the inbox. In other words, PlentyOfFIsh is terrible for men and women. Do yourself a favour and choose something else!