Vancouver woman says eHarmony kept billing her after she tried to cancel her membership

eHarmony advertises itself as a premium dating website designed to help people find long-term partners.

But a West Vancouver woman said the company failed to deliver any suitable matches and then refused to refund her money when she tried to cancel her membership.

Lori Zondag signed up for a year-long subscription worth about $300 and, shortly after her three-day cancellation window closed, realized the site wasn’t for her.

The dating site claims to help people find compatible partners through an algorithm that matches people who share common interests and values, but Zondag said she was presented with few matches that interested her.

“So when I called they just said, ‘Sorry, you need to change your preferences in order to make this work better,'” Zondag said.

For Zondag, it was as if eHarmony was telling her to “lower your standards.”

Then, she said, eHarmony refused to stop billing her.

“I said, ‘I’m willing to pay for the month that I’m on here but please don’t charge me further because I’m not using this, it’s of no value to me.’ And it was basically, ‘Sorry, too bad, you signed up.'”

Zondag said she thought she would be charged monthly but was instead charged three lump sums of $100 each.

A spokesperson for eHarmony told Global News:

“In the event a customer is not satisfied with the service after registering, eHarmony has a three-day cancellation policy in place which allows users to request a full refund. After the cancellation period, customers reserve the right to cancel their registration or subscription at any time as well with no refund.”

Zondag finally broke up with eHarmony by cancelling her credit card.

“It was the only way to keep them taking that last $100 from me.”

– With files from Catherine Urquhart