OurTime

My 84-year-old neighbor asked us to help her get on OurTime to seek companionship. We first noticed that the website is intentionally designed to make it easy for older adults who aren’t tech savvy to accidentally spend more money. Example: the site will lay out several upgrade options which it features prominently, while the “no thanks” or “skip” button is very small and hard to see.

Then, we discovered the site’s functionality has varied logic, where it seemingly makes it complicated and inconsistent to initiate dialogue. Again, it seems to encourage older people to click on people they’re not interested in, to drive traffic.

Next, we noticed that the same old people keep coming up in your deck, time after time, even after you click that you’re not interested. To make the site seem active, they churn the same repeat profiles.

Then, our neighbor started getting spammed by other dating sites owned by the same company (Match.com) with confusing hyperlinks encouraging her to sign up for their services. We have tried repeatedly to unsubscribe from Match.com, and it simply won’t let us. It’s ridiculous.

Simply put, these sites are scams that try to take advantage of older people.

Absent these sites doing the right thing, I’m contacting Apple iTunes support directly. They DO CARE and WILL REVERSE any charges that come through these predatory sites. And give them negative reviews. Just contact Apple iTunes directly.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

I signed up over a month ago, and then I canceled my automatic renewal because I found this site difficult to navigate, and not many profile choices. After I canceled, I got bombarded with the site's ads with every keystroke, which was an unpleasant experience. I complained to the site's email only to have more of their ads bombard me. The site was so unpleasant that I took a loss by removing my profile. Dating sites should be a halfway enjoyable experience. Do some research on this company because they have other dating sites as well. The company that owns this site has an "F" rating with the BBB.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

OurTime.com: I deleted my information from your website many days ago. I thought I had quit your website, but you still charge for it. I went to my account many times and you went to see it, but it showed that “We apologize for the inconvenience: Access to your Account Settings is currently unavailable. Please try again later.” It can't be canceled at all. As a result, you deducted another month's fee of $32 from my credit card, which seems like a trap, because when I pay for my credit card, it's hard to notice, and I have to do everything possible to cancel it, otherwise you will automatically charge continuously. I buy the most expensive in a short period of time one month because I just don't want to buy cheap but for many months and a long time, as a result, you still deduct the most expensive month in a row, which can not be the wishes of consumers. I hope you can return the $32 deducted this month (May) to my credit card.

Thank you very much.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

Met Thomas. Admitted he lied about his age. So I asked questions and did research. Said he was a widower. Could not verify. Found former home. Sold, and wife listed in another state. Did not like questions but I am not going to trust when he admits the first time we met he lied. Not sure I want to pay to meet a person who lies. And THEN says he wanted a sexual relationship. I’d already said no. Just not worth the stress.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

OurTime is an online dating site targeting the over 50 crowd. It seems like a good idea, but the system lacks a great deal of functionality and the number of people you can contact is limited.

Anyone can sign up for a free account and view profiles, but they cannot communicate with other members.

Anyone who is curious about the site must create a free profile to see if they will like it. This creates the illusion of having many members on the site, but in reality most are no longer using the site and even if they are, you are not able to communicate with them.

Free members are able to send "flirts" and view profiles, but you must be a paid member to use any other feature. Once you become a paid member you will be able to receive flirts from unpaid members which means your inbox will be cluttered up with flirts from people cannot reply to any message you send them. The "flirt" function is a simple one click button so you can click on hundreds of profiles in a very short time, even though you did not read their profile and not able to follow up with further communication.

To make matters worse, you have no way of knowing who is a paid member and who is not, so if you see someone you are interested in and spend the time to read their profile and send them a message, there is a very good chance that they will never see or read your message. As a paid member you will be able to see if they have read your message, but that is after you have already invested your energy into writing to a person that you think you might like.

There is a “Match” feature that creates daily matches for you. However, those matches have nothing to do with the search criteria you are using and therefore are useless.

The software runs slowly, and even though I am a paid member, the site contains ads that clutter up the screen. The chat feature will allow not allow me to enter more than about eight words without locking up, so I need to type a few words, hit enter, and type a few more and hit enter just to type a sentence.

Along with the ads that clutter up your screen there are popup boxes that pop up every time someone views your profile. Although I’m sure some people like that I find both the ads and popup boxes distracting.

Once you become a paid member you will have the opportunity to pay for extra features by buying tokens. You will need tokens to use the Match Me, Promote Me, and Notify Me features or to give virtual gifts.

I do not recommend anyone use this system unless you are bored and don’t mind browsing through inactive profiles and reading through automated messages that are sent to your inbox automatically when someone clicks on a button on profile before going on the next profile.

The one plus of this system is that customer care responded to my concerns very quickly. They were not able solve any of my concerns but they responded very quickly and confirmed that there was no way for me to know who was a paid member and which members were no longer active.

There are better online dating sites out there that are more user friendly operated by companies that have more integrity and value your time. I would definitely give this site a thumbs down.

Also, check out the 382 complaints with the BBB at https://www.bbb.org/dallas/business-reviews/dating-service/people-media-in-dallas-tx-90248947.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

Similar to what others have written, I shelled out money only to be bombarded with messages from people who clearly set up fake profiles. Here are a few examples:

I received a message from a man who called himself "Tony" who was in his early 60s and from Connecticut. He had a few pictures that looked completely normal. I replied to "Tony" saying thanks, but you live too far away. He then sends me a long sweet poetic message about long distance relationships. Then before my very eyes, his profile went from a 60-year-old man to a 79-year-old woman. The pictures of the 60-year-old guy were gone and replaced with pictures of an attractive older woman. This happened immediately after I finished reading the poetic email about long distance relationships.

The very next day I received a very long email from a guy in Mississippi who said he was borrowing his friend's account. He couldn't change his friend's picture because the friends of his friend would get mad. I should send him my email information right away because the subscription was running out. Of course, he wrote how special I was, sweet, and lots of other complimentary things. Then he wrote a very very similar poetic verse about long-distance relationships; extremely similar (almost word for word) to what "Tony" sent the day before.

There were many, many, many other similar things like that occurred during the four days I had my photo posted.

It seemed to me that Troll may have hacked some legitimate users' accounts. I was fearful that my information was going to be hacked or copied and then used by the Trolls. Who wants to be on a dating site where you have to worry about the safety of your information and who wants to have to question the legitimacy of messages received?

I wish I had done more research on OurTime.com before I had joined. It was downright frighting to think that I actually PAID to be inundated with trolls and scammers. When I say inundated, I mean that! In four days I received at least 230 messages, flirts, etc., and I believe 90% of them were from scammers.

If you are serious about meeting someone online and don't want to be the victim of a scammer, don't join this site.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

The worst site imaginable. Look forward to spending two minutes verifying that you're not a computer every time you log in (after paying), so you can see 45 people, two of whom you're interested in (in a top 5 city in terms of population in the US), one of whom has been online in the last year...and a bunch of people a hundred miles away. All good reviews about this horrible site online are ones they paid for. Run for the internet hills.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

My mom, who is not tech savvy, signed up for this site without reading the fine print. How are they allowed to continue scamming seniors?! A few red flags:

They wrote inaccurate information in her profile. Things like “I like to listen to jazz and chill.”

They sent messages on her behalf to other member profiles.

When she did connect with someone, she was catfished. The guy said he was from Dallas. I looked up the phone number he provided, and it’s a telemarketing line from Carrollton, TX. Interesting that this company is based in Dallas.

None of her matches were from her home state. All thousands of miles away. And there is no way to filter by location.

She matched with my uncle who’s been dead for 5 years.

They have a no refund policy.

There is review after review of people not authorizing renewals but our time keeps charging them even after their account has been closed.

Their terms of service are confusing, the site is confusing, and my theory is the entire thing is a complete scam designed to take advantage of our vulnerable population of boomers. I’m going to the Attorney General, and anyone else who has been defrauded should do the same. They need to shut this down ASAP.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

I started to sign up for their "SeniorPeopleMeet" and was redirected. Spent hours trying to set up the app on my phone - kept giving me a useless error message.

This morning I did, and found that:

1) There is nothing much you can do without paying, and paying a lot.

2) I know my small town, and I know that nearly, if not all, profiles they show me here are fake.

Zero stars unavailable.

A minimum of a $1 a day for introductions to non-existent people?

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

Most profiles are not active subscribers. You might as well just use the phone book. The last web design in early September 2017 makes the site even less functional, including hiding profile activity so you can no longer tell when or if the person you are looking at has even logged on to OurTime. No doubt done by OurTime to conceal that the vast majority of the profiles are NOT ACTIVE. Other changes since September include cropping photos so heads are cut off and message read (an additional fee for this one) does not work correctly (the extra charge OT collects from you does work just fine). Inept customer service rounds out the feelings of total frustration, and the knowledge that you got swindled.

STAY AWAY. I did not think OurTime could get worse! I was wrong, it did.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

Do not use this site. They charged me £119 to get started and no chance of getting it back. I have to write 180 characters or they do not except my review. They are rubbish, do not use this site, you have been warned. They are too expensive for what they do even though they sponsor some TV shows.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend