The JDate Disaster: My $120 Mistake

Back in December, I was feeling slightly sad & single. Like many sad, single folks around the holiday season, I began to lament my singledom & as a result fell prey to an offer from JDate.com, the Jewish dating website, which is fairly popular (though I use that term loosely) among Jewish young professionals, especially in big cities. Anyway, they offered a "one week free" special over Chanukah, & I took the bait.

But then I remembered a few things:

A) Online dating is lame.
B) I personally confirmed that online dating is lame by going on one JDate date last summer; it was a huge bust.
C) I hate small talk, which is an online dating staple.
D) Most guys on JDate are schmucks. Or I am a schmuck.
E) And so on & so forth, all the way through the alphabet.

Thus, I opted not to renew my "subscription" to JDate, if you can even call it that, canceling the auto-renew function, which is a bullshit function to begin with. I didn't think about or log in to JDate again for months.

In April, I logged into JDate again & was surprised to find that the email feature worked (one that's only available to paying members). Figuring it must be a glitch, I utilized it to read old messages random Jew-boys had sent me, & then I didn't log in to JDate again. Now, a month later, I still haven't.

Now, I've certainly heard JDate horror stories before, but they typically involve sketchy boys & bad sex. This, however, is a nightmare of a different variety: Today, I spotted a $39.99 charge on my debit card. The money-taker? Why, JDate, of course! I immediately put in a call to corporate, where I was told that because I logged into my account in April & didn't call to ask why I had access to premium features, I wasn't eligible for a refund of any more than one month.

After much anger on my part & much patronization on the part of Amanda, the JDate supervisor I spoke with, I haggled my refund up to two months. But:

A) That's not good enough. They should at least refund me until I first logged into JDate in April.
B) This is highway robbery. It was clear to them I had no idea I'd been subscribed to their services for five months.
C) This woman literally played into every nasty stereotype about Jews & money, but I couldn't bring myself to say so.

I'm going to call back tomorrow to speak to someone else about getting the third month back, someone who I haven't already lost my cool on. I requested that they cancel all my JDate affiliations, deleting my account in its entirety, & I have now committed myself to proclaiming the ills of JDate to every single Jew I've ever met. Either maintain a free account or go out & meet some people in real life: Do NOT give these jerks your credit card information!

And yes, I realize that the OTHER moral of this story is that I should monitor my bank statements better. As JDate Amanda so kindly reminded me, "It's your own responsibility to keep track of your financial activity." Thanks, Mom. Actually, even my mom wasn't that obnoxious when I told her the story. But you can bet I'll be keeping a much closer eye on my meager finances from now on, lest JDate or any other auto-renew criminals try to pull one over on me again.

If only I could put as much passion into trying to find my besheret as I have into being furious with JDate...