Toronto Dating Scene » iChurch

iChurch Stops Validation Scam?

Toronto Dating — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 05:33:29 +0000

Remember the iChurch scam? This Christian dating site decided to charge people *only* $1.95 as a ‘validation’ fee – except a few days later, as per the fine print, they would then ding you around $150 for a nice big membership… all under the ‘Christian’ banner and after making such a huge deal about how they want their members to act in a Christian manner. It was quite a piece of work. Despite many complaints and even a formal reply – but no change in the way the conduct business – they may now have realized that scamming members may not be the best way to build a business. You see, businesses usually work when they have repeat customers. Once you use the small print to increase a charge from $1.95 to $150 then you may not get that return business. Not sure if the iChurch lawsuit will still be going ahead but it seems iChurch.com have removed the ‘scam’. No more validation fee – just a straight up auto-renewed membership fee (as per most online dating sites):

Hi,

My name is Adam and I work in customer service for iChurch. Due to negative customer feedback from this particular billing plan, we terminated this billing plan several months ago and are offering full refunds for anyone who signed up under the plan and is unsatisfied. If you would like a refund or have any other issue or question, feel free to contact me at support@ichurch.com or 1-877-295-8966 and I’ll be happy to help you!

I’d like to apologize for any inconvenience / frustration that this particular billing plan has caused. We are looking forward to continuing to improve iChurch.com to make it a better and better tool for the faithful to find love and lifelong happiness.

Best,

Adam
Customer Support
iChurch.com

The ‘apology’ is, of course, total bullshit as they’ve been continuing with the practice for ages and giving people the total run around once they requested refunds. Either way, it seems the practice has been stopped. Anyone have experiences with the ‘new’ iChurch.com? Please comment below. Oh, and if you’re some how thinking about giving iChurch.com some of your hard earned money now that they’ve ‘reformed’ — I’d say please don’t. These crooks don’t deserve your money.

iChurch.com Class Action Lawsuit in the Works?

Toronto Dating — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 21:06:49 +0000

The iChurch scam is still continuing (see the small print visuals if you missed it) and there is now someone who supposedly is going to start a class action lawsuit:

“Just want to let you all know that I am calling a class action Lawyer tomorrow to find out if we can sue this company, get it shut down or at least be more honorable with their practices and I will need your help. I have received some emails from others that want to get involved if you would like to, please email me at…”

Full details here.

iChurch.com Scam: iChurch Responds but Doesn’t Stop Scamming

Toronto Dating — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 21:05:59 +0000

iChurch.com, the “Christian” dating site has been scamming members for a while now with their ‘validation’ fee that then rolls over into an expensive membership fee. You only know this by reading the fine print. Their normal response to customers hasn’t been great.

Last week iChurch.com did indeed respond to the many comments on this site by commenting as follows:

iChurch would like to apologize to all of our members that feel like they were misinformed about their membership or did not have a good experience during their membership at iChurch.com. Our company policy is to try to resolve all complaints that our members have about our service and I regret that our customer service has fallen short of your needs. We have added additional customer service representatives to better service our members and expanded our refund policy so that hopefully no member that is deserving of a refund or misinformed about the cost of the membership when signing up will ever feel the need to go anywhere else to complain other than our website, support email staff or phone lines.

If you are dissatisfied with your membership or would like to suggest a way for us to better our customer service, please contact us at support@ichurch.com or 1-877-295-8966 and we will be happy to assist you.

Sarah, iChurch Support Staff

So, I figure, the iChurch.com online dating billing scam has been stopped, right? Nope. It’s still live. See for yourself:

iChurch Dating Site Review: iChurch.com

Toronto Dating — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 02:01:36 +0000

The reviews of iChurch Christian dating site are in. After we posted about iChurch scam whereby they charge you $1.95 to ‘validate’ yourself (you can’t even see the photos on dating profiles until you ‘validate’ yourself) but then automatically ‘renew’ that with a charge of $149.97 (a three month membership) if you don’t cancel in time.

What happens when you ask about the iChurch.com validation fee before paying it? More than one commenter told us that iChurch simply removes your account without answering the question at hand.

What happens when you do get dinged by iChurch for the three month membership? Good luck getting them to respond to you. No response via email or getting return calls from voice mail messages left. And if you miraculously do get a hold of them? iChurch gives you the runaround. Alternatively, they’ll just say ‘no’.

People are even calling for a class-action lawsuit

Who runs iChurch.com? If you try to see the ownership via their domain name ichurch.com, it’s private. Why would a legitimate company keep their domain contact information private?

How’s that for an iChurch.com dating site review? Two words: Stay away.

iChurch Billing Scam – Their Response, Sorta

Toronto Dating — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 04:48:30 +0000

After posting about the iChurch scam, we received a comment from a reader. Basically, when they contacted iChurch to ask for an explanation about the ‘fine print’ (‘validate’ for $1.95 and then get dinged for a three month membership within a few days if you don’t cancel) our reader got an email back canceling their account accompanied by a ‘God Bless You’. There was no explanation, they were just shoved aside (profile removed, actually). This iChurch billing scam story gets better and better. This is the stuff we expect from True.com, not a Christian dating site… or am I wrong?

Christian Dating Scam: iChurch

Toronto Dating — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:35:06 +0000

How about this for a dating site scam?: You pay Christian dating site iChurch $1.95 to ‘validate’ yourself on the site (so that ‘everyone has the assurance that all iChurch members represent themselves honestly’). Without validation you basically can’t do anything except search profiles (no photos however!) and create your own profile. But wait, that $1.95 will get nicely rolled over into a three month membership if you don’t cancel within the first three days after you ‘validate’. Sure the fine print is there but it’s scammy none the less. So, iChurch wants validation to ensure honesty among it’s members but when it comes to billing practices the honesty gets thrown out the window. The actual verbiage is as follows:

“Validated members are automatically enrolled into a three month membership that cost one hundred and forty nine dollars and ninety seven cents and that is billed upfront after the initial three days has expired if they do not choose to cancel before then as explained in the Terms of Service”

Lovely.