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After calling to discuss the membership I agreed to a reduced (on offer) but substantial £995 registration fee and £55/ month thereafter fee.
I was 'quizzed' by one woman and merely asked a lot if obvious questions that really only satisfied one word answers. Suffice to say I was disappointed and felt the interviewer (all by phone) had not really understood it could understand me or what I was after from such limited and 2D questions.
I have decided to cancel my monthly direct debit after being 'matched' by another lady at the company with unsuitable clients, mostly older than requested and whom lived far away. This lady had no knowledge of me, and when initially setting up my profile online completed with terrible spelling errors and poor phrasing. This was pitched as a professionals website, yet few profiles fit that description. When I relayed my initial concerns I was told I was told it takes time and it was strange I had not clicked with the profiles offered. Not one profile suggested 'attractive' as their namesake suggested.
After being given 6 profiles over 5 months, I chatted with 2 over the phone, who were not suitable. When informing the company of my distrust for the company and indeed it is my belief there were few eligible men or profiles in their agency, I was told my height was an issue, at 5ft10 and it was odd I had not made any matches it met with anyone. I was asked to explain what I was doing wrong. The lady in question was rude in her tone across all emails, very unprofessional and I believe has since let the interviewer whom I first spoke with go, as she was not mentioned once since joining. I had initially been told that if I was unhappy I could receive a full refund. Something that Margot the lady I had mist communications with, was once again rude and refused. Suggesting they had satisfied their rules online.
This company, like so many others, pray upon hopeful single women and cannot deliver what is promised, throwing back age, personal attributes and being 'fussy' as a reason in disguise for their empty, cowboy company.
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer's satisfaction.
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We believe this is a fake review about our company, Attractive Professionals. We are a personal matching service (not online dating) based in the UK.
We have thoroughly searched our records and can find no customer who would match this description and feel that this has been posted by a competitor.
We are a very small, family run business in the UK with an excellent reputation in a business that does have some bad apples.
We are members of the Association of British Introduction Agencies www.abia.org.uk.
To be a member, we have to adhere to their strict codes of conduct. We have been a member for many years. They don’t deal with online agencies at all and are the standard bearers for good practice.
We take all complaints very seriously but this one is not real. Companies who don’t have the credentials that we do, often try to disparage agencies with good reputations.
Kind regards,
Lorraine Marlow, Director
[protected] or [protected] (personal mobile)
www.attractiveprofessionals.co.uk
Attractive Professionals is the trading name of Yours Sincerely Dating Ltd.
Registered Office: 16, The Havens, Ransomes Europark, Ipswich, Suffolk IP3 9SJ
(Tel) [protected] (email) lorraine@attractiveprofessionals.co.uk
Company Registration Number: [protected]
Attractive professionals have not taken my complaint seriously, and they certainly do not adhere to the Association of British Introduction Agencies' Code of Conduct.
I have requested a full refund of the £895.00 I paid the introduction agency Attractive Professionals on my Santander credit card on 23/06/2016 and a refund of the monthly fee of £55.00 paid from my Santander account on the following dates: 01/07/2016; 01/09/2016; 03/10/2016. This comes to a total of £1, 060.00.
I requested the refund because Attractive Professionals clearly had no intention of providing any suitable matches and they have not provided the services for which I paid. The agency has demonstrated a profound lack of professionalism and incompetence by sending emails to me which were intended for someone else (see email from Ms Marlow dated 31/10/2016); claiming they had sent profiles when they had not (see emails dates 13/02/2017 from Ms Marlow and Ms Medhurst), making a false suggestion of harassment (see email dated 16/02/2017 from Lorraine Marlow); failing to respond adequately to my complaints .
I first informed the agency of my dissatisfaction with the service by email on Thursday 15th September 2016. Attractive Professionals has now ceased to provide any service at all and I have consequently written to them to terminate my membership and request a full refund. They have not replied.
I have always been very open and flexible in terms of matching criteria: I was willing to meet men within a wide radius and I was flexible about the age of prospective introductions.I would consider men in the age range of 50-67, as people age differently. If someone outside this age range seemed to the agency to be appropriate I would consider them too.
Since joining the agency eight months ago, I have received only one introduction where the man wanted to meet with a view to developing a relationship.
Ms Marlow claims that I have ‘dismissed some very nice gentlemen without even having a phone call with them. The evidence is to the contrary. In fact, I declined only one suggestion and that was because he was severely disabled and confined to a wheelchair as he was paralysed from the chest downwards. The number of meetings have been low not because I dismissed profiles or declined meeting the men concerned, but because the recommendations or match suggestions sent were unsuitable and refused even to exchange telephone numbers to converse on the phone. The majority obviously therefore thought I was not a suitable match or recommendation for them either (Ms Medhurst encouraged me to agree to exchange numbers with her suggestions even though I believed many of them to be wholly unsuitable). Only one of the eleven suggestions sent by the agency should count as being anywhere near to an appropriate recommendation. Basic match making criteria has been ignored by my matchmaker; one of the recommendations sent was a smoker and I had said I did not want to be matched with men who smoked.
Of course, Attractive Professionals should never have taken my money if they did not have appropriate people on their books or were unable to access them. I have requested a refund from Attractive Professionals but the agency refuses to engage in any discussion at all.
It would seem that Attractive Professionals intentionally sent unsuitable profiles to thwart any possibility of meeting a partner and to prolong the period of membership so that I would continue paying the monthly £55.00. The longer my membership continued, the more Attractive Professionals received in fees for 'work' done. Although they offered six months’ free membership none of the profiles sent during this period have been suitable or appropriate.
Before joining, I had reservations because I found complaints against Attractive Professionals on the internet. Ms Marlow emailed me to say the complaints were not genuine. I have since found many more complaints about the agency and the other people’s experiences correspond to mine exactly. I was cautious having had a particularly bad experience with an agency who was not a member of the Association of British Introduction Agencies (ABIA). Ms Medhurst was aware of this and she gave reassurances: Saturday, 18 June, 2016 13:00 ‘I’m sorry Laura, I know that you were badly let down …’. Ms Medhurst claimed that: that Attractive Professionals would provide an ‘exclusive service’ of ‘Personal matching... genuinely seeking a relationship’.
I joined the agency because I was led to believe I would receive a bespoke, personal and privileged service from Attractive Professionals. Nothing could have been further from my experience.
I was welcomed into the agency by Ms Medhurst on Tuesday, 21 June 2016 8:53 ‘You’re a very warm, accomplished lady and a most welcome addition to our service’
23 June 2016 10:27, ‘We are members of the Association of British Introduction Agencies www.abia.org.uk. To be a member, we have to adhere to their strict codes of conduct. We have been a member for many years. They don’t deal with online agencies at all and are the standard bearers for good practice. We take all complaints very seriously’.
However, Attractive Professionals have failed to respond adequately to my complaints and, it would seem, to adhere to the AIBA Code of Practice, which states that: It is compulsory on all Members to accept the Code in its entirety. If a client feels dissatisfied with their treatment by a Member they have a right to take this up with the Association.’ ‘All Members shall offer and maintain a fair refund policy’; 1.2 Each Member must have a listed land line telephone number which the public can, during normal working hours, use to speak to someone in authority within that Member agency.
Email from Ms Medhurst sent Wednesday, 13 July, 2016 13:53 ‘We’re not really set up to be a telephone service Laura, so you’ll probably find it easier to communicate with me by email’
Tuesday, 30 August 2016 13:27 I arranged the transfer of £50.00 for Thursday 1st September and said I would be most grateful if you and I could speak over the phone, so that I know that we are both clear about the kind of gentleman I was seeking.
When I have complained Attractive Professionals have invariably made poor excuses. Please see below:
1. (see email from Ms Medhurst dated 15/09/2016) ‘No, I’m sorry but I won’t be available to talk today as I’m going down to Suffolk this afternoon to see my mum… ‘
2. saying their fees are low and I should therefore expect a low quality service: ‘I think you’re being really unfair in saying that you’re disappointed in us and comparing us unfavourably with Attractive Professionals. I’d like to point out that our fees are just one-third of what you paid them, you told me that you’d met no one in a year and yet in just one month of active membership, we’ve had two guys who wanted to meet you’
3. saying that they do not provide a telephone service: ‘I would also point out that at no time have we said that we’re a phone service like AP but it would seem that you expect much more from us in spite of our much lower fees’
4. implying that their service will be diminished if I complain: ‘I think that you need to be fair and positive in your dealings with me/us or we’re not going to get along…’
5. They have tried to twist things around and to make me feel personally at fault when they have been unable to find suitable matches; they have also become verbally aggressive. The company has alleged that I have been impolite. These allegations are false.
I understand that the ABIA is supposed to be an independent regulatory body. However, Attractive Professionals have requested I do not contact the AIBA.
I have asked the agency to explain:
a) what a failed service for a client would look like in order for a refund to be granted a refund
b) how few meetings a client would have to have had for the agency to offer a refund - I certainly consider one meeting in eight months to be disappointingly low and certainly less than I was led to believe a client would receive.
My trust and faith in Attractive Professionals has now been completely broken and the experience has been dreadful. Demoralising, humiliating, frustrating, a waste of time. There is something particularly unethical about this introduction agency taking large sums of money - purely for profit and yet under the guise of offering a good matchmaking service - from people who genuinely seek a partner, especially those who are lonely through bereavement and who are lone parents.
If you managed to read through to the end without nodding off, you can probably see that Laura is a professional writer. We were subjected to reams and reams of writing and more phone calls than you could count.
The kindest thing I can say about Laura is that we found her the most difficult and demanding client we've had in over 30 years of trading; we also know of two other agencies that she'd previously joined and both of those ended badly too.
When she decided that we couldn't produce her ideal partner quickly enough for her, she turned her attentions on to those good folk at the ABIA who are only doing their best in a difficult industry. She harassed them with calls and emails to such an extent that they pleaded with us to ask her to desist.
Compared to the thousands that she paid the other companies, our fees at just £895 are miniscule but Laura wanted a Rolls Royce service for the cost of a bicycle and she wanted it yesterday!
The Attractive Professionals Team
As Director of Attractive Professionals, I feel I have to add to Margot’s reply above.
We go in to the office every single working day with one objective in mind; to offer the one introduction that will make the difference to someone’s life.
We don’t play at this, this is our livelihood and our family business. One of our team has been in dating since 1979. The rest of the family have joined along the way.
It’s a very sensitive area dealing with people’s emotions. We’re trying to find partners for people and we’re delighted when we do!
When we come across someone like the client above, who is able to post a review online that is potentially damaging to our reputation and completely one sided, we feel we have to respond.
This lady turned down many more lovely gents than just the disabled chap she mentions and who she was disparaging about (he’s such a lovely chap). We’re quite protective of our members and this client was rude about many of the chaps she turned down.
After she had been verbally aggressive to Margot, I took over her care. We had many long chats and I tried to reassure her that it only takes one person to turn hers into a success story. The one on one service this client received ran to hundreds of hours and its worth mentioning that after the first two months, she was receiving FREE membership!
But she kept turning gentlemen down. This client purports to be the victim of us and other agencies. The opposite is true. Through our links with similar organisations, we have learned that we are not the only agency she has treated this way.
Then I became the target of this lady’s aggression on the phone. Even after this, I offered her another suggestion who she turned down because he supports armed forces charities and she is against war!
This client mentions other bad testimonials about us. THERE ARE NONE! If you type ‘Attractive Professionals reviews’ into Google, there are some links to our own website and to the ABIA that appear in the list.
There is another one which is a Daily Mail article. This is NOT us. They use the words ‘attractive professionals’ within the text of the article and therefore Google picks it up. It’s actually about a DIFFERENT company altogether.
As you go through Complaints Board and online, you can see that there are tens of thousands of complaints about dating services. I’m not aware of any genuine negative review about us online aside from this one.
There are some reviews for a company with a very similar name to ours but again, this is NOT US!
It’s upsetting when you try your best to help someone and they can so easily try to destroy your company with an online review.
I would urge any reader to take Laura’s review with a very large pinch of salt. Her story didn’t have a happy ending, but it so easily could have - and so many do!
I’m always available on 0131 338 6112 or 07450 611019 should anyone wish to discuss our service or this response with me.
Lorraine Marlow
Director
Attractive Professionals
www.attractiveprofessionals.co.uk
I cannot believe what I have just read. I had a terrible experience with your company but at least I was lucky and got out quickly. The main reason was your team's appalling attitude. That is typical of Ms Medhurst's rudeness in the post above. I know another person who had a bad experience so that is a few of us so you're wrong to say there are no negative reviews.
So the first reply to the first post said they had no idea who this person was. Now all of a sudden they do! How untrustworthy!
My experience with this organisation matches that of the complainant. Like her, I too paid out a substantial amount of money (in my case £500), had the initial meeting with a representative (who was nice and which went ok) and was subsequently, over six months was provided with half a dozen profiles of people who were either clearly incompatible with my preferences or who lived too far away to be viable. When I queried this, firstly I was fobbed off with the 'it takes time' excuses and then when I persisted, I received the same sort of unprofessional and rude responses from the person the complainant has named in her details. Conclusion: Avoid at all costs - both in terms of your self-esteem and financially.
PLEASE NOTE:
This review is not for our company ATTRACTIVE PROFESSIONALS!
There are many companies in the UK with similar names but if any prospective clients would like a fact-check on the above review, please note that we have NEVER charged £500 and we do NOT meet with clients.
We conduct telephone or Skype interviews with new clients - unless of course clients would like to pop into our offices - in which case, we're always very happy to see them and we make a mean coffee (if we do say so ourselves).
Attractive Professionals is a very small, family run business in the UK with an excellent reputation in a business that does have some bad apples.
As mentioned above, we have been members of the Association of British Introduction Agencies (www.abia.org.uk) for many years and we adhere to their strict codes of conduct.
Kind regards,
Lorraine Marlow, Director
[protected]
www.attractiveprofessionals.co.uk
lorraine@attractiveprofessionals.co.uk
I also had a very poor experience with this company too, easily identifiable by the person representing AP in this chain . I was met by an interviewer (contrary to what Ms Marlow is saying above) and told Margot would be matching me. She never called me to introduce herself - how can you be matched with someone when you don't even take the time to speak to them on the phone? I was told before I cancelled my membership that "we are not a telephone service". There were several other problems, for example I asked not to meet a man who was separated, they sent me the profile of someone who is separated. Margot was also very rude and unprofessional when I queried this. I was never told either there was a 2 week cooling off period - that wasn't in the very poorly worded contract which is different to what is on the website. In fact, , the interviewer told me when I signed up that I was committed. Even though I cancelled my standing order, the final payment of £55 went through to them which they never returned to me even though I asked. They suggested I contact my bank but their policy was that I didn't give enough notice so they wouldn't give me the money back either. I don't know why AP didn't just refund me in the first place. I just felt they wanted to take every penny off me. I also complained to Abia but they ignored a lot of my complaints and just said that they hadn't broken the contract I signed. I was very lucky though that someone suggested I contact my credit card company and so I got my initial fee of £1, 695 back.
I believe based on my experience that these reviews are genuine - run from this company and run fast.
My name is Sarah, I’m a 52-year-old American doctor, living and working in the UK and my experience of Attractive Professionals is very different to the above.
Knowing that I think highly of them, Margot asked if I would post on here because the previous comments don’t reflect AP as it really is for most people.
I met my partner through them and I was recommended to join by my friend who had also met her husband-to-be through this company.
I found Margot, Lorraine and the rest of the team to be unfailingly upbeat, friendly, polite and helpful but I think some people may have improbable expectations of the service.
Compared to online dating, matching people may appear slow but I’d suggest that it’s the end result that matters. My friend and I are proof that it does work if you’re realistic, patient and open-minded.
I’d like to back up what’s been said above. When I joined Attractive Professionals, I was a 43 year old man with a 4 year old daughter. I wasn’t sure I would find someone who would take us both on and I had tried online dating which was a nightmare. Margot and Lorraine, as well as the team were wonderful, totally understanding and helpful at every turn. I met my new partner after about 6 months and we’re getting married in the New Year. I too have recommended the agency to my friends as some of them are realising, as I did, that it becomes harder to find someone special once you pass 40. Lorraine asked if I’d post a review of my experience with Attractive Professionals and I am very happy to do so.
Hi, I’m Penny, a solicitor aged 47, living in the West Midlands and I have nothing but good things to say about Attractive Professionals.
After being a member for five months, I met Ed, a chartered engineer living in Staffordshire and we’ve been together now for six months.
Bearing in mind that I’d been single and looking for 12 years, I consider it a minor miracle that Margot and the girls found me someone so quickly (I was prepared to give my membership two years).
I know in my line of work and I’m sure others who work with the public also know that try as you might, you just can’t please everyone.
As I’d recently emailed Margot to tell her how happy we were, she asked if I’d mind posting here and I’m delighted to be able to share my experience.
I joined Attractive Professionals almost three years ago now and while at times I did chafe at the bit, wanting to meet someone now, Margot calmed me down each time. And she was right, I was meeting the right sort of men but of those I agreed to meet, we just didn’t have the right chemistry. It took about 18 months but eventually she introduced me to Dan and we’re getting married this summer!
(An honest review left at the request of Margot)
I have had bad experiences at the hands of this company too. How dare they slag off Laura the way they have.
They are deluded if they really think they have provided an acceptable service: they have not and I have many issues with them, that one day I will share. I actually know of two other complainants who are not happy with the service they paid Attractive Professionals a lot of money for, in good faith.
I also know my own experiences and their responses to those, so I know the truth about how cleverly they seem to wriggle out of these complaints.
I have to say again, having re-read the thread, that these complaints are not fake, and they are not about any other company than Attractive Professionals. I have first hand experience, having been a customer of theirs, that everything these complainants are saying is correct and true about the service this company charge you a lot of money for: it is appalling and they are rude and nasty to you as a customer, and are totally ripping people off.
They are terrified of their online presence being ruined by people telling the truth. Their reaction to any complaint reeks of desperation: be defensive and get nasty about their customer, to try and say its a fake review by a competitor, to say its not about them as a company, to then get a few people to write positive reviews! - That's how desperate they are for the truth not to come out.
I actually know of another four or five people who are not happy: people need to be warned that the 'introductions agency' they run is actually an excuse to take a lot of money off people, who in good faith think they are buying a professional service, when really they just take your money and don't care about you as a person at all.
N.B. any profiles of people they send you will not even be a MATCH for you, they will just be fulfilling the terms of their 'contract' by sending you an 'INTRODUCTION': this is how they get round it...there is no 'match-making' involved, and they use numerous excuses as to why you should 'give this person' a go (when they may live hundreds of miles away, or be too young for your preference, for e.g.) - they literally are just sending you someone so that they've fulfilled the terms of their contract...
I totally agree with all the negative comments that individuals have made and I can tell you now that all those comments eill be 100% true as I had exactly the same dreadful experience. In fact it was only last night that I opened the last email that I received from Margot, and that was from a year ago, as I was so disgusted by some of the comments she'd made at the time. I can only describe it as a personal attack. I'm an attractive 52 year old however she stooped so low as to tell me that unless I'm drop dead gorgeous I'd have no chance as that's all men are looking for from a woman over 50. I couldn't believe it. So what about the fact that I'm a successful professional too. I think that makes me a pretty good catch. I'm sure like most of you. But more to the point. Let's get to the matches. Never in my life have I been so insulted. To try and turn it round on me when challenged about their, should we say, unsuitability is below the belt. All I can say is that I'm disgusted with the whole experience. Thankfully I got out before they could do any damage to my self esteem.
Wow...and I was going to join! NOT a chance now!