May 16, 2007

Better Business Bureau

Complaint re: Great Expectations

I have been notified that I owe Great Expectations $440.33.  Here's what happened.  In 2005, I made an appointment with the Great Expectations office (a dating service) after receiving a solicitation letter in the mail.  I had been divorced for a while, and am just over 50 years old – it seemed like a good way to meet people.  The woman who interviewed me stressed how selective they were, and repeated throughout her presentation that members were highly educated, and held professional jobs that kept them busy, and that GE was an alternative to meet people that shared similar qualities.  She talked about the events they held for members to meet, and stressed the personalized service of the customer service staff.

The claims made during the sales pitch could not have been further from the truth.  The database was not robust, and the few men in my area were front desk clerks for apartment buildings, landscape crew managers, and so on.  No events were held in the year I was a member, other than 2 that were announced 2 or 3 days before they were held. A customer service representative called me once, encouraging me to answer another member's inquiry – he turned out to be a 73 year old man. I'm a marathon runner and enjoy wilderness travel, and this was the only individual they introduced me to. After a year of being completely dissatisfied with the poor and minimal services Great Expectations delivered for my initial fee of $3,000, I called in early 2006 to cancel my membership. When I spoke to the customer service rep, she encouraged me to inactivate my membership, rather than cancel, which would allow me to re-activate for the roughly 18 months left on my contract if I changed my mind.  She never mentioned a fee as an "inactive" member, but rather gave me a rather aggressive sales pitch to use this option.  I agreed without being informed of the consequences.

A few months later, April or May of 2006, I noted that my credit card statement had a $29.95 (or so) charge on it for 3 straight months that I could not identify. No one had asked me to authorize the use of my credit card for a purchase of this amount.   It was under the name of "Belmont Services."  I asked my credit card company to investigate, which they did, and let me know they thought the charge might be legitimate, but could not tell me why, or what the charge was for.  There was no phone number for the vendor on my credit card bill, so I could not call to find out myself.  My credit card number had been changed, and I didn't think much more about it.

Just this last week, at least a year later, I received a notice and demand for payment from a collection agency on behalf of Great Expectations, which is dated April 27 – and a phone call from the agency demanding payment.  I pulled my contract with Great Expectations and note that it does say that I would have to pay a monthly fee to be an inactive member – but that if I failed to, my membership would be cancelled. 

I had no intention of being an inactive member when I placed my first call to cancel – I was talked into it by a GE employee who made no mention of a contractual obligation to pay $29.95 per month.  I have not received any phone calls or requests for payment since.  Instead of canceling my membership as the contract states, I am now receiving a bill for what amounts to nearly 14 months of a status I never wanted in the first place.  Great Expectations provided nothing to me or did anything for me during that period of time, and did not discontinue my membership as the contract states.  Instead, they are attempting to get more money from me for doing nothing more than hiring lawyers to threaten me with lawsuits.

Not only is this scenario very hard to believe and so out of bounds in an industry climate where sites like match.com charge $29.95 per month for excellent services, the business practices are so disingenuous, it's offensive.