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Avoid the Academic Singles scam!

I was recently (2016) scammed by "Academic Singles". After I signed up for a free account, they kept sending me messages saying that specific women were interested in me. Each woman had a picture that was blurred out, but several of them appeared reasonably attractive at a guess.

Eventually, my curiosity was eventually piqued and I signed up for a package. Then and only then did I find out that the women I was curious about had NOT uploaded any pictures, and the photographs were "placeholders" put up by Academic Singles. In short, it was a scam.

Within the hour I signed up, it became clear to me that I had been cheated. I then contacted Academic Singles about a refund and stopped using the service. After several emails, it was abundantly clear that they had no intention of processing any such refund. Their incredible response? "Rather than have a blank space in your profile, the use of a placeholder template photo to fill the space where your profile picture should be has a proven positive effect."

In other words, they are blatantly and quite smugly deceiving us.

Their latest excuse for rejecting the refund is that I had already used their service and had read/sent a large number of messages. These messages were all read/sent within that first hour, all to women who had first indicated interest in me, and almost all to let them know (nicely) that I did not return their interest. The others were to a bunch of very different looking women who had all written me the exact same message asking me to contact them at the same email address (lol).

Incidentally, the real women who had written me were all NOT academics.

I have previously signed up for other dating services and know that legitimate businesses do not use fake pictures to lure in customers. The ratio of genuine to fake users is also far worse here than on any other site I have used. I had googled Academic Singles extensively before signing up and had not seen any evidence that they are scammers. To put it simply, there is no way an uninformed person could know that this particular website engages in deception of this sort. So here I am to tell you this so you don't waste your money and time here.

tl;dr Academic Singles brazenly lies to you using fake pictures. Save your money and avoid this scam site like the plague.

Pros
None

Cons
This is a scam site.

They use fake pictures to lure in the unsuspecting.

Yes, they got me to,,,,you think your doing the right thing and BANG, they are milking your credit card for all its worth.
pics and profiles are fake, the only thing real about this site is the emails from the debt collectors asking for money the have no legal right to. And the method set out to cancel your subscription is about as helpful as instructions on how to fly a plane, written on a table napkin,,, So eventually i just canceled my credit card, problem solved,,YAY, or so i thought. so for cutting of their fingers from my cookie jar, aka MasterCard, they now have a collection agency trying to muscle me into paying another $200 for something im not using. SCAM SITE , STAY CLEAR .

What an utter set of scumbags these people who run this site are. They may as well be sending you the "I am a Nigerian Prince and I have £2m to send to you" Scam its as bad!!
Luckily I didnt sign up, I added a profile, and it wouldnt let me view the other photos saying to view I had to upload my picture. I uploaded a picture and then it changed to saying I have to subscribe to view pictures. What an utter scam. The pictures, blurred images that you do see, you can tell are fake as the same picture appears against different people of alleged different names and ages.......maybe none of these are in existence at all and are just all scam images and we all get the same ones probably just changed to meet our requirements. Im glad I didnt sign up, but having read some reviews, I cannot believe how gullible some people are.....sending money, thousands to people they have never met on a dating site or through whatsapp - this dating scam has been going on for years, you cannot not know about it - dont give anyone money and most of all do not give this fake site ANY MONEY, dont put your card details anywhere, dont click on the subscribe button. Go to a good honest verified site. This appears just to be another of those Facebook Scams (thats how I got the link). DO NOT use this site. Id hope all of these reviews cannot make it more clear - even if you have added a profile and then read these - do not pay anything, youll get caught in a trap as there is no way to get to them to cancel your membership it seems and they will just keep taking your fees.

I am writing under a pseudonym in case AS are watching! I joined up on a trial offer. When I realised it was a scam I tried to cancel my automatic renewal but was unable to so I alerted my credit card company and asked them to block their request for more money. Since then I have had several emails and letters first of all from AS themselves, then from a debt collector in Germany (I live in the UK) who then because I did not pay passed it on to another debt collector in the UK. They also emailed me and I explained why i was not paying citing all the reasons people have given above- eg fake photos, not academics there, no possibility of cancelling membership etc etc. Since then I have heard nothing. My advice to you all is to write one email explaining your reasons for not paying - ie that the site is a fraud and list the reasons why you say that it is fraudulent and then send nothing more. Keep all records in case. There are enough of us here to provide evidence now should anyone be taken to court. If you are taken to court come here and we will provide you will evidence and I would hope you would do the same for me!

This site is a complete scam. I thought I was signing up for 6 months at think it was $7 or something. They took $300 off my credit card and absolutely refuse to refund. This site is a hoax.

THE SAME OLD STORY -ONLY WORSE.
I MADE A PROFILE AND HAD A LOOK AND THEN RAPIDLY CHANGED MY MIND.THERE WAS NOTHING "ACADEMIC "ABOUT AGING TRUCK AND TAXI DIVERS.
I THOUGHT I HAD =DELETED MY PROFILE -NBUT NO.I AM NOW TOLD MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HANDLED BY A DEBT COLLECTOR AND I NOW CANT LOG IN TO REMOVE MY DETAILS.
I SUPPOSEDLY OWE OVER $300 FOR A SERVICE I NEVER USED....WHAT A JOKE .

Total scam. They offered me three months at a reduced rate and I stupidly gave them my credit card. They charged me the full rate anyway, but never sent me a receipt, so I didn't realize it until I saw my credit card transactions. The listing for the charge only said b2.com, with no other information, and tried to find a way to contact them but it was impossible. I complained to my bank and they stopped my credit card and launched an official complaint. I went ahead and used the service for the three months I had paid for anyway and found it was useless. There are no academics (on the Norwegian site, anyway) -- half of them don't have any higher education at all. The few people I answered who apparently reached out to me never answered me back. After the three months were up, when I visited the site I got the message that my profile had been blocked and I had to pay $125 immediately, and if I didn't they would pursue collection. They had an email to write to on that warning (finally!), so I told them my membership was cancelled by virtue if them cheating me and demanded a confirmation of that fact. Have not heard back from them yet.

Hello.i am from Romania and i have the same problems with this site.they tried to take money from my bank account but i notified the bank.now because i am not releasing the money,i am receiving threats on e-mail to pay otherwise a credit collecting company will ve involved.is there any possibility to escape this scam.did some credit company approach somebody ?i need to know how can i solve this !

Hi Katy. I have had this too. I was advised by a lawyer to simply state why i did not owe any money (and you can get some ideas from what is written here and see my comments above). After hearing from a credit company they then sold it to a debt collector who also contacted me. Again I simply stated why i did not think i owed anything and I have not heard anything since. That was 4 months ago so I doubt I will now. So my advice is that if you do hear from a credit collecting company simply tell them as briefly as possible why you do not think you owe the money - say as little as possible. They may then send it on to a debt collector - send the same email to them and then ignore them. Hope this helps - feel free to ask if you do not understand. I have written this quickly as am busy but happy to come back again!!

Hi Katy, and this goes out to everyone else who is or has been targeted by a Debt collector / Credit Agency that is associated with "Academic Singles".
The sight is a SCAM, no surprise there,lol there actions in Demanding Payments, that they are NOT Legally entitled to, and or ,for services NOT supplied or fulfilled is illegal.
Know this, for the few hundred $$$$ that they claim is owed to them from you, it will cost them double or even triple in court to recover it, and their Claim in a court of LAW will not stand up, subsequently they know this and the only course of action they have ,is to threaten and intimidate you until you give in .DONT.
The fact that EVERONE on here has had similar problems with "Academic Singles" does indicate that they are OBTAINING MONIES by DECEPTION, and that is ILLEGAL.

Oh , almost forgot ,,,,,, with regards to CANCELLING your subscription, instead of going around n around trying to get in contact with them , just ring up your credit card company and say you lost your card, ok so it takes a week to get a new one ,but hey , it pisses them of not having access to you account, no more money for them, thank you all and be safe .

This site didn t get my money,but they keep sending me e-mails threating me to send them the money or to the details from my new card,orherwise some credit collecting company will contact me to recuperate the debt.they charged me money even for cancelling the account (i succeeded to that from other IP address).thank you all for your advice

AcademicSingles is obviously fraud system. Here is what they do. Once you create your membership, you get many alert saying your profile has been viewed. Of course all of them fake, robotic profiles managed by Academic Singles. They fish you. You are forced to buy membership to see who viewed your profile. You buy 1 month membership to try the system. During first 2 weeks, you are kept busy with fake messages. After 2 weeks, you pass the period which is for automatic membership renew 3 months. At that time, you are owned 3 months price to Academic Singles. You can’t cancel it, you can’t stop it. What happens next? Those fake messages stop to be coming. Stay away any dating sites especially from AcademicSingles. Go out, meet people instead

Hello ... I am from Romania and I am in the same situation as my predecessors. Today I received a letter asking me to pay the outstanding amount of EUR120.43 even after the emails sent to them for cancellation of the contract I did not receive no answer, the surprise came with this letter that neither stamp nor stamp did. What do you advise me to do !?

Do nothing - they give up. This is a scam as you know so they would not win in court.

Hi I need help.
I subscribed late last year for the premium service. However after a few months I had a feeling this is fraud and deleted my profile. Tried to cancel sent them an email through their web site. I also sent them a letter to the address they had on their web page.
They have now tried to debit me for another 6 months and because they could not as I used Pay Pal
They are threatening to use debt collectors and put on extra fees plus damage my credit rating.
Can anyone advise on what I can do?

Signed up on a whim as this obvious dating hoax is being advertised on local TV channels ( I live in Europe ) . Within the first minute i noticed the blurred picture of someone i instantly recognised from tinder (and don't ask me how, but i can get in touch with her on facebook). This is obviously a scam site ( i got the same blurred messages and fake requests from people whose profile descriptions are just rows of commas and dots LOL) so my question now is, should i send this girl a message informing her of this and maybe go somewhere from this ? I mean she's got a kid and all, posts a zillion things on facebook all day long (obvious signs of why she fails at dating apps), but she kind of looks like Liv Tyler in her Arwen days.

This post was half-humorous, but seriously i wouldn't suggest anyone use this EVER. Now to figure out how to delete my account.

Hello.are these guys going to stop sending me e-mails and threating me to pay?i already received 8 e-mails for the past 4 months.they can force us to pay ?

Ignore the emails - they will give up eventually. Don't engage with him. With me they sent emails for a while then stopped. Have not heard from them for several months now. They might pass it on to another debt agency - if so ignore again. There are enough of us now should any of us be taken to court for the money - it would be too much trouble for them. Just ignore

This is still happening. a friend of mine got hit for nearly £200 when he thought he was paying about £48 for 6 months. They flat out refused refund even. Basically stole his money. Do not use this website in any country in any language. Warn anyone you know to avoid it at all costs.

Hi Katy,
I'm co-national with you & exactly in same situation; now I have received a dunning letter for a German debt collection company. did you solved this story and how?.

Dan,i received e-mails from the same debt company,every 2weeks. If you pay attention to your e mails you will see that you can pay the debt via paypall or card.the paypall is not working.i didn t try to pay,but i read all the messages from this site.don t use your cards details because you will never escape them.for the moment,i am ignoring them.i also saw on the news that a lot of romanian people have problems with this site.we also have the GDPR regulations on out site.

Let me know if they are engaging into some legal action.for the moment ,ignore them.they are actually stealing money from people’s cards and after that they are trying to get more.

Just been scammed too. If any of you were scammed in the UK the bait and switch law should help you. In my opinion these guys use a bait ( the alleged picture) and switch it to another. ie a classic bait and switch.

Katy and Dan,
I am your intelligent co-national, in the same situation. Will this thing ever end? shouldn't we take any action against AS? It seems like a nightmare in the 2018' EU! Do not have any laws? We can only take the threatening and shut up?

I cancelled in September asking for money back but they have no taken another $200 out
Pure Theft