Apparently it's possible to do something so terrible that eHarmony (http://www.eHarmony.com) doesn't even want to take your money anymore -- check out this e-mail I received on Wednesday:
* * *
From: eHarmony Customer Care
Subject: IMPORTANT – Match Termination Notification: (20693209)
Date: Wednesday, October 8, 2008, 1:15 PM
Dear eHarmony Friend,
Making your eHarmony experience safe and successful is important to us. As a
past or present user, we want to inform you that eHarmony has taken action to
remove one of your matches, Craig from Manhattan, from the eHarmony.com
service. This decision was made in accordance with our terms and conditions.
Consistent with our privacy policy, we do not disclose the specific reasons for
this person’s removal. eHarmony.com disclaims any responsibility or liability
with respect to any continued involvement between you and any person whose
account is closed by eHarmony.com. Please visit the links below for further
information on our privacy policy, and to obtain safety tips on corresponding
with matches.
http://www.eharmony.com/singles/servlet/about/terms
http://www.eharmony.com/singles/servlet/privacy/statement
http://www.eharmony.com/singles/servlet/safety/tips
To address any questions you may have, please visit our Frequently Asked
Questions section concerning the removal of users from our service. You can find
this information at the following link:
https://help-singles.eharmony.com/cgi-bin/eharmony_singles.cfg/php/enduser/guided_adp.php?p_faqid=1025
Sincerely,
Customer Relations
eHarmony
* * *
Crazy, huh? He had actually seemed like one of the more promising guys on the site -- good job, had traveled extensively, etc. I'd almost made it to the Open Communication stage with him, where you can finally write messages to each other freely instead of just sending each other pre-formed questions through the site. I wonder what he did to get kicked off!? I clicked on the last link above, which said: "eHarmony may determine that an account should be closed based on routine monitoring and review of account activity and/or information received regarding a member's account or activity. If an account is closed by eHarmony for Terms and Conditions violations, eHarmony will make every effort to notify any past or present customers matched to the users whose account has been closed. If you have received a notification regarding a match's account being closed, we strongly recommend that you discontinue any further communication with this match."
There was also another link to click on, which said:
* * *
Question
What are the most common reasons for closing a match's account?
Answer
The most common reason for account closure is a violation of eHarmony's Terms and Conditions such as the misrepresentation of personal information (name, identity, address, age or marital status)
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But if a man was married but dating women from eHarmony and pretending to be single, how would they know? Did enough women he dated figure it out and tell e-Harmony? Or did he just write a vulgar e-mail to someone and she complained? Whatever it was, I'm relieved they shut down his account before I wasted time e-mailing him or, even worse, meeting him.
October 9, 2008
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10 comments:
Wow. Now I have another thing to worry about with eHarm. Of course I would have to get someone to talk to me first. Maybe I don't have anything to worry about.
Ha! Well, in my experience eHarmony gets off to a slow start, but eventually men do contact you.
I'm intrigued. I had heard that eHarmony was a Christian site, and they don't accept gays or lesbians, so maybe that had soemthing to do with it. ;)
SEECE
Wow - so strange. I'm glad that they have some sort of oversight..and that you didn't yet meet him if it really was something crazy he did!
I know -- I'm glad I didn't meet him, too!
Well, the people who founded it are Christian, but they accept people of all religions. But you're right, they don't accept gays and lesbians, which I think is wrong. }:-(
I have been on eHarmony off and on for a couple years. I get some great matches that flop after a while and some complete duds. There was one guy I was speaking to that got kicked off. I had no interest in speaking to him, because after I initial phone conversation, he would randomly text me, "What's up" at 2am, 3am, etc. Uh, I'm SLEEPING! But when he got kicked off, he texted me to tell me that it was because he got into some horrible verbal argument with a woman on there, she submitted all the emails to eHarmony for review and they booted him. I would have LOVED to have known what the emails said! If I hadn't already been over talking to him, that certainly would have done the trick.
Ugh, what a loser! Glad he got kicked off! Yeah, I would have suspected that more people get kicked off for writing insulting or vulgar e-mails than for being married. It's easy to forward a nasty e-mail to the powers-that-be at eHarmony, but harder to figure out someone is actually married -- and then be able to prove it.
I got kicked off e-harm for catching them trying to scam me! My account had expired a few weeks ago. They sent me an email saying a match wanted me to re-open, so I rejoined the next day only to have the match close me out in a hour. I was furious and accused them of scamming me out of more than $100. They gave me a refund, but blocked me from my profile and account. You can meet some nice people there, but it takes months and months because I think 70 percent of the matches they send you are no longer active.
It is my belief that this provision of eHarmony's terms and conditions was used, unwittingly by Eharmony, as a form of electronic libel and harassment against me (probably by a disgruntled ex-girlfriend). Awhile back, Eharmony terminated my account and sent an e-mail to other registered users, without ever explaining to me why. I had used the service off and on over the course of a few years, and had dated several women from the site, some of whom have become my close friends. In fact, the way I found out about the incident was through one of those friends, who called me to tell me she had received the e-mail and asked what had happened. I was dumbfounded, and made numerous phone calls to eHarmony to try and get an answer. I even filed a complaint with BBB and took the process as far as I could, and no representative from EH was ever willing to discuss it. I have a good reputation in the community, absolutely no criminal record, and have never been accused of a crime. However, the implication of the e-mail sent by eHarmony was that I was someone to be avoided -- which, as evidenced by some of the reaction on this forum, is libelous to the extent that it tends to harm my reptutation in the eyes of those who read the e-mail and who are not yet familiar with my good character. In other words, the people who know me, including former matches with whom I am now friends, knew there was nothing to it -- but people who don't would clearly be put off by receiving the e-mail. To this day, I still don't know what this was about, but my hunch is that this was brought about by a disgruntled ex-girlfriend, whom I had found out had been cheating on me and lying to our mutual acquaintances about alot of things, including the fact of her cheating. When I brought these facts to light, this was her retaliation. It is infruriating, because IF this is the reason why, I would have loved to give my side of the story to EH, who was apparently unwilling to listen. Though it's not worth my time at this point, I think this type of situation is grounds for a harassment and/or libel suit against EH and/or the disgruntled former dating interest. While it would be satisfying to file suit and subpoena whatever information EH thought they had but were unwilling to discuss on the phone, it is not worth my time. However, to someone else in this situation, a lawsuit might be a viable avenue to explore.
More specifically, Eharmony's e-mail to tens or hundreds of other users would be a violation of Texas law under Texas Civil Practices and Remedies Code:
Sec. 73.001. ELEMENTS OF LIBEL. A libel is a defamation expressed in written or other graphic form that tends to blacken the memory of the dead or that tends to injure a living person's reputation and thereby expose the person to public hatred, contempt or ridicule, or financial injury or to impeach any person's honesty, integrity, virtue, or reputation or to publish the natural defects of anyone and thereby expose the person to public hatred, ridicule, or financial injury.
The above e-mail from Eharmony clearly impeaches the character of the "person," and judging by the sampling of the reactions on this forum, exposes the person to public hatred, contempt or ridicule. While truth is generally a defense to libel, Eharmony's publication by e-mail to an untold number of recipients would not support this defense, because they did more than simply state that I (the user) had been terminated. Rather, they implied, in more ways than one, that I was somehow dangerous and to be avoided, without having any legal basis for making this allegation, e.g. no criminal or civil record, no public accusation of wrongdoing, no criminal investigation, and no other evidence of any wrongdoing - at least in my case.
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