Beware of these pitfalls. Using free dating sites can be both dangerous and frustrating. Here’s why:

1. Scammers – Scammers from Nigeria, Malaysia, and a dozen other countries are notorious for trolling the internet looking for free membership-based sites. Dating sites have become their favorite. They create a bogus profile using a very real-looking photo of an attractive person. They have also been known to steal photos and profiles from other dating sites – so they appear extremely authentic. Their goal is to have you provide them with your email address – which they’ll use to steal your identity or to outright scam you for money.
2. Predators. Free sites only ask for an email address and not a credit card. Many don’t ask for verification that the email address is real.  Without requiring a credit card, there’s no name/address verification and tracking taking place. Thus making it an ideal environment for criminal predators, rapists, etc. High quality, safe dating sites are able to provide law enforcement officials with the person’s name and address if necessary. Scammers, criminals and predators avoid sites that can result in them getting arrested and use free sites instead.
3. Free dating sites attract those who are too broke (or too cheap) to pay a few dollars a month. If they can’t afford a dollar a day for an opportunity to meet people, is this really someone you want to date?
4. Since there are no credit card transactions on free sites, they attract married people who are posing as single.
5. People who pay for a service are more committed to using it. In this case, that means finding someone compatible. When you take away the financial aspect, the sense of urgency generally goes with it. Free web sites are full of members who haven’t logged in to the site in months – perhaps years.
6. Bogus profiles. There are hundreds of free dating web sites that claim to have thousands upon thousands of members. Many times, these claims are built on fake profiles that the web owner created to give the appearance of a successful dating site. Why? — see reason number 7.
7. SPAM, Ads and worse! Free web sites are never really free – after all, they have to make money to support the site somehow. They do this through advertisements on the site, through email campaigns that bombard you with advertising messages in your mailbox and by selling your email to list brokers – who then sell your email address to thousands of other web site owners. What you save in dollars ends up costing you in wasted time sorting through the onslaught of marketing messages. Is that how you really want to spend your time?

In the end very few (if any) people actually find a quality person to date using a free online dating site. If your intention is to find someone to date – perhaps even someone to spend your life with – expect to pay at least a few dollars a month to protect yourself and find quality singles on the sites you use.