True.com admits to sending fake winks

True.com CEO Herb Vest admits that his site sends members fake winks:

The site has also been criticized for generating random "winks"--the industry term for messages of interest from other members. Dan Consiglio, a 49-year-old engineer from Vancouver, Wash., said he received dozens of winks from women after signing up for True, and responded to many of them. He got only one response, from a woman who kindly informed him that she had not, in fact, winked at him.

Vest acknowledged that the service sends artificial winks, but he said users have the option to disable them and that they serve an important purpose. "We try getting people who otherwise might be very retiring or shy to meet each other and fall in love and have children," he said. "We are just trying to do our job as a matchmaker.

Thinking of canceling your membership?:

On many Web forums, online daters have shared horror stories of trying to cancel their True.com accounts. True requires members to telephone the company to cancel, but it appears to go the extra step of sometimes failing to honor those requests.

Preston Roder, a 54-year-old liquor store manager in Mundelein, Ill., said he tried to quit True.com last September after an unfruitful yearlong membership but was still hit with an array of charges over the next four months.

"True is a big company, but they could care less when you try to cancel," said Roder. "They got your money so they are through with you."

Vest said the company recently revised its policy on cancellations. "We are not as good as I want to be. We still have an ongoing project to improve," he said.

An ongoing project to improve? It's not difficult to stop charging members. As a matter of fact it's easier to stop billing then to start billing. No credit card authorization is needed to stop billing.

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