Don’t get your hopes up of finding love through matchmakers, consumer watchdog tells Hongkongers on Valentine’s Day

Hongkongers are finding out the hard way that money does not buy love and the Hong Kong Consumer Council used Valentine’s Day to warn people of the pitfalls of trying to find their soulmate using matchmaking services.

The consumer watchdog on Thursday revealed that in 2018 it recorded 64 complaints – an increase of 56 per cent from the previous year – from both men and women, who were dissatisfied with matchmaking companies. The complaints ranged from poor quality of service and disputes over charges to deceptive sales tactics.

In one case, a company persuaded a woman to become a premium member for an annual fee of about HK$20,000 (US$2,548) by showing her photos of a number of men who were premium members. It promised that several meetings would be arranged for her every week and she would also get a free six-month membership if she paid right away.

The complainant took up the offer but no meetings materialised after the firm gave her initial information on a number of men.

After complaining to the company she was told that the problem was the photo she was using was not attractive enough. It tried to persuade her to pay an extra HK$25,000 for a professional photography service to improve her chances of success.

The woman refused and asked for her membership to be cancelled and for a partial refund of her fee. She got no response from the company, prompting her to lodge a complaint with the council.

Love – what’s money got to do with it? Quite a lot, actually

The company then told the council that it had approached the complainant directly for a settlement, at which point she stopped pursuing her case.

But Clement Chan Kam-wing, chairman of the council’s publicity and community relations committee, said the public should be mindful that the success of matchmaking services depended on the willingness of users and that platforms cannot force people to meet one another.

“Expectations for these service providers should be realistic. Don’t let your imagination run away with itself,” he urged.

The council also called on service providers to clearly disclose the mode of operations for membership, as well as terms and conditions, to customers after receiving complaints of misleading information.

“They are also reminded that any omission or any false or ambiguous representations may amount to a contravention of the Trade Descriptions Ordinance,” it said.

In another case, a woman paid HK$2,899 for a one-year membership with a company and was told that she would receive information on up to five male service users every day. But after the first month the information sent out by the service started to dwindle, while some of the matches proposed to her did not meet her expectations.

Huge explosion in online scams in 2018, mostly romance-related

She then doubted the company’s claim of having 170,000 high-quality members on its website.

The company explained to the council that the number actually included all members across Southeast Asia and was the aggregate figure for the past 10 years. It said the firm currently had about 3,000 members in Hong Kong, 1,200 of them male.

This prompted the council to advise the complainant that she could report her case to the Customs and Excise Department.

Meanwhile the council’s chief executive, Gilly Wong Fung-han, spoke of a complainant who signed up in a rush and paid HK$300,000 for a customised package. Wong said the complainant requested to withhold some of her personal information and asked for “some high-quality introductions”.

When the woman, finding the service did not suit her, wanted to cancel, she disputed the initial fee with the provider, thinking it had been HK$150,000.

The council advised consumers to carefully check the conditions for terminating membership as well as the expiry date before paying for any service.