Hi there, and welcome back to my blog (or welcome to the blog, if you are a first timer). About a month ago, after a couple of years of alternating between trying to be your basic 21st Century version of Don Juan (too expensive) and a monk (too lonely), I checked out a website that a friend told me about called Dream-marriage.com. It’s a site that looks to hook guys like me up with Russian women and while that whole idea didn’t appeal to me much at first, I took advantage of their three-day free trial anyway, just to see if there was anything there for me. Well, it’s been a month, and I’ve been having a great time on that site so far, so I guess the answer to that question is, yes!
In my last blog, I wrote about the security set-up they have on Dream-marriage.com because, being in IT, security is very important to me. You can go back to that entry to see what I found in depth. Suffice it to say, these folks take their security very seriously and, judging from the things that they post on their site that they are doing, continually upgrading their systems. They not only take care of the technical concerns on their end, but also have a huge database of articles relating to anti-scam strategies, and how to stay safe online. All in all, I give them 5 out of 5 as far as their security is concerned.
Now while security was my primary concern about the site (just as it is about ANY site I choose to use for anything, not just dating), running a close second to that was cost. Let’s face it, guys, money is tight these days – I don’t care who you are or what your story is. The economy went into the tank across the board and while things seem to be getting a little better, that was certainly a wake-up call for me when it came to my spending habits.
When I first started checking out online dating sites, I quickly learned that most of them fall into two categories; the ‘one-size fits all” bunch, and the ‘hidden costs’ bunch. With the first group, you have these mega-sites that charge you a small fortune for your six-month or 1-year membership and for that price give you all these goodies. The problem I had with those sites was simple – I didn’t want all the goodies and, since I didn’t want them, I sure didn’t want to pay for them. I didn’t want their machine “matching” me with my “perfect mate”, I didn’t care about ‘date-tracker’ services (if I meet someone and it doesn’t work out, why on earth would I want software to remind me of that) and I couldn’t care less about any ‘compatibility inventory’. Half the fun of dating is finding out about compatibility for yourself! The other kind of service doesn’t charge much of anything initially – or, at least, that’s what they tell you. But with these sites, I’ve had a couple of friends (who, admittedly, didn’t read their Terms and Conditions as closely as I would have) who found HUGE charges on their credit cards for doing things on the site that they thought were free. With both these kind of sites, the idea seems to be that you are made of money (which I’m not), and that you really don’t care how much you spend (which I do).
Dream-marriage doesn’t do business in either of the two above ways. In the first place, they offer a wide range of membership options – starting at FREE and working up from there – and then let you buy the services you want to use, while not forcing you to pay for things you don’t want to use. You know, like you were an adult or something! In the second place, not only do they tell you what the various services you might want to use (introduction video, live streaming video, etc) are going to cost up front, they also provide a confirmation box that you have to click OKAY on before they even let you spend your money – so there can’t be any accidents on your part. In other words, you buy what you want to buy when you want to buy it, and you are in complete control of not only how much you spend, but also what you spend it on.
The way they do it is through a ‘credits’ system – which is something else that just makes a ton of sense to me. Basically, after the free trial once you create an account, you can start buying credits (anywhere from 50 to 500 at a time – and the more you buy at one time, the less they cost), and then that’s it. The credits are how you buy the services you want. Your credit card is only charged at the “buy credits” stage – never directly for the individual services – and then the credits act as currency on the site. No hidden charges, no multiple credit card billings – everything right there out in the open. For me, not being an accountant, that system makes it real easy for me to not only keep track of how much I am spending, but also control what it is I am spending it on. To give you an example, while I really like their live chat service, there have only been a couple of instances (so far) when I’ve been interested enough in a girl to want to use their live streaming video service. So, since I don’t want to use it all the time, I don’t have to pay for it all the time. It just makes sense – I mean, I wouldn’t go to a restaurant that charged me for things I didn’t order, so why would I do that on a website?
Anyway, the bottom line is that unlike most of the other sites I have looked at, Dream-marriage not only doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to use, but also lets me decide how I want to spend my money. You would think that would be a no-brainer for just about any site, you know – but it isn’t.
Okay, that’s about it for now. Next time, I’ll tell you about some of the girls on the Dream-marriage site but, until then, if you want to check it out for yourself, remember their three-day free trial.
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