maritalaffair.co.uk reviews and complaints

I wanted to add another comment to supplement my two posts above. The charges that were taken from my card may have been unauthorised, or it has occurred to me that they may have been included as part of a contract or an advance payment relating to repeat billing. It is therefore possible they were not taken illegally. However, they were unexpected. I would also like to add that my use of the maritalaffair.co.uk was some time ago, and so the website may have improved its practices since due to all the on-line reviews that have been posted. If anyone reads the three posts I have put up here, I would encourage you to also read ones relating to more recent experiences by others too before forming your own opinion on whether to use the site. I wanted to supplement my two posts with this one to give an accurate review of my experience as possible.

I WOULD SUGGEST MAKING A COMPLAINT TO THE LOCAL TRADING STANDARDS OFFICE OF THIS BUSINESS:
http://www.kent.gov.uk/business/trading-standards/consumer-protection/report-a-problem-to-KCC-trading-standards
Many people join this site to meet single people for casual or serious dating but are duped by their fraudulent on-line activies.
They are breaching the Companies Act by not displaying the correct company information. The current company referred to on the website is Marital Affair Ltd which is dissolved.
More importantly, the way they operate their website is probably fraudulent and criminal, resulting in £m of turnover obtained by these practices.

I joined up and had extra payments deducted from my card that were nothing to do with the charges displayed. Also, lots of fraudulent emails from other female members. This site is fraudulent and dupes people into payming money, as well as taking other payments completely illegally

Of course it's not a scam and the cam girls/escorts/pros that you describe are a blight on all online businesses. We however employ a large team of people who patrol our sites to keep them off but very occasionally one will slip through. We get about 99.8% of them off site within 1 minute but sometimes that take a little longer to sport or be reported. We don't monitor users approaching the end of their subscription, there are far too many members on the site to have time to do that and as for employing ringers, we leave that to some of our less scrupulous competitors.

Of course there is no fraudulent activity on our part, we would not be allowed to trade if there was. Our refund policy is dictated by law, if you received one it was because you would have been entitled to one, and if you didn't it was because you were not. It really is that simple. Throwaway _username, your complaint was dealt with in good faith and so to call it a scam is a little disingenuous

All card transactions are verified through the bank screening services and we rely on them to validate card authenticity. If you are unsure of the reason why we appear on your credit card statement go to this website www.gpl-cc.com, it will explain who we are, why you have been billed and what you should do about it if you think you have been the genuine victim of card fraud. It also has copies of our Terms and Conditions for you to read. When you subscribe to one of our sites, you are informed that it is a repeat billing subscription which can be cancelled at any time by following the instructions on the website.
Regards
support@globalpersonals.co.uk

I joined, and within days realised it was a scam.

I sent recorded delivery letters to Paul Homewood at New Life Ventures UK and his home address saying it was essentially a fraudulent service, and if the money wasn't refunded I'd get Trading Standards involved.

I also sent a similar recorded delivery letter to Global Personals in Slough - Bill Richards is currently responsible for customer services. I did this after a call with their customer care people.

Within 24 hours, my card had been credited.

Definite scam - avoid. If it's too late, do the above.

OK, I run my own media business and understand what is quite a simple business model when you think about it. The ratio of men to women will be at least 1000:1, I know this because i registered a couple of female accounts to see what happened - the message rate is phenomenal. Without doubt the site is setup to manipulate the psychology of men in the first instance. So the minute a women joins (for free) an auto icebreaker is sent to every guy, this is classic pester power that entices people who have no paid account or if you do you still check the message to see whether its a round robin or 'just for you'...this repeat behaviour is setting up an addictive link - basically you're hooked. There is without a doubt rel women on the site, I know this because i've met some and they were real and they were genuinely looking for an affair. The problem is that the site is also full of CamGirls/Escorts/Pros and scammers of ever kind...the site admin will try and spot these but usually they'll last at least 2-3 days before they are removed, meanwhile they've done a good PR job for the site themsleves of course (what a surprise!) The site admin will change your profile rankings when you are close to renewal and/or potentially looking to pay, they monitor the usage so can spot behaviour patterns. On top of this the site itself will employ 'ringers' to send out enticing messages to no paid members encouraging the behaviour patterns above, you can usually spot these by the text used, profile language, picture.
So 'Scam' is probably the wrong word to use, but sharp practice, double glassing, dirty tricks is more to the point.
As PT Barnum once said "there's a sucker born every minute!", and when it comes to the promise of sex we just can't stop ourselves.

Don't understand your problems. The site doesn't rip you off for 6 months membership when you join, it asks if you would like 6 months membership which equates to a smaller monthly amount as you get discount and you obviously hit the button saying yes when you should have hit the button saying NO. Hardly their fault. I'm sure there are far more women then men that's the nature of this type if thing, the fact that there are inactive profiles is good showing that they close down any suspect accounts, other similar sites/niches are probably joining as it's free for women and trying to get guys to visit their own sites. I've been a member on messabout for a couple of months and I've met one person all be it not really my type but I can confirm she was real! Lol

Unfortunately (being sad and lonely) i bought 3 months. The single most worrying things is that like a previous post said, its all part of a great multitude of websites. Ive been mailing a couple of genuines on 'myfunbuddy' who are actually on different sites called
'Sinuk' and 'PlentyOfWeight' and 'cougar' (i didnt get the rest of the name). I think there are some real peeps on there but certainly not many. Also before i joined it said it had half a million members in the london area, as soon as membership had gone through it dropped to just under 15000. Bit of a difference.
Also you can only cancel membership via phone not email.

Hindsight is wonderful but we should get these b*****s shut down, all of them.

Absolute disgace. I should have read the reviews before joining!
A total scam. Once you join and access the site there is no going back. You cannot get a refund as the terms and conditions stae that if you use the site there is no refund- hence no breach of contract on their part as they state that you agreed to the T and C.
I do not think that there is even one real female on the site. I e mailed them countless times demanding money back due to fraud etc. They kept replying with the usual answers and that they took steps to ensure they were all genuine. RIGHT!
I removed my picture and changed my profile to sound like the most riduclous description I could think of and the winks and messages still kept coming! I e mailed them again only to be told that these must be "CAMGIRLS" who are operating a scam. so there you go, they openly admit that a large majority of the females on the site do not actually exist!
My profile has been looked at just once in 2 months and that was by a right grimmer!
They have tried to tell me that female members can send "icebreaker" messages to loads of people (this is apprently not an option for a male member). But that still begs the question, "How come they hae not even bothered to read my profile before sending me a message?"
Do not, under any circumstances ever even think about joining. You are kissing your money goodbye the second you access the site.

oh another person with the same complaint as me! So many of us who were scammed for 6 months membership when we wanted a week or a month! I havent been able to get a refund from them yet but am taking the further.