If I had fifty bucks for every coffee date I went on, I’d be rich. Well, my wishes have been answered by this “revolutionary” new dating site. This one screens serious daters by only allowing them contact if they pay you a minimum fee to date you.

I like the idea of merging the seriousness factor (the biggest appeal of dating sites) with an ad hoc purchase plan. That way you know someone is serious but you don’t pay a monthly fee for a service you don’t use. But giving the money to the site’s users and having it start at fifty bucks seems like they want to offer more than coffee if you get my drift.

It gets dodgier. You have to make an account to search and in my experience that never ends well. Once you sign up, you’re presented with a standard pay-to-play site that’s feature restricted to anyone who isn’t a gold member. Wait–I thought I was getting paid for this. Oh and then there’s that: everyone on the site has to set a price before they can even look at other members. If we’re all for sale, who pays whom? Oooh that sounded deep.

Fortunately there are no less than thirteen FAQ’s on their help page related to payment questions. At least they’re thorough, right? Not exactly. Every single FAQ is about how to pay for gold membership, how gold membership is billed, how gold membership appears on your bill and what to do if you get any errors entering your payment info.

This is a membership scam.

Clearly they don’t expect anyone to make money off these dates. Otherwise why not skim off the top of the prices people set and let everyone use a fully functional site for free? If nothing else, profit off a semi respectable veneer for people looking for coffee dates with “happy endings.” Instead you pay a monthly membership and possibly fifty bucks’”when? After the date?

There is no automated system to “get paid” for dating, which begs the question of why a fifty dollar minimum exists. What they don’t say is that you’re your own bill collector. What an ugly beginning to an already dubious relationship. WTF?

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When not spending money on coffee dates, Mike occasionally updates Broken Cupid, a dating blog for single gay guys.

Photo credit: stock.xchng.