Roommates.com review: As a paying member, you are subjected to scams 12

Greetings,

My name is Matt and I'm the Relationship Manager with Roommates.com. This complaint was recently brought to my attention and I would like to address the claims made by the complainant.

I would first like to apologize for the poor experience the complainant had with our service. Roommates.com strives to provide the best roommate matching service to our members, and when we hear that a member has not been satisfied by what we provide, it is our desire to right that wrong and deliver a solution to the problem at hand.

Although my response is taking place some time after the complaint was written, and it's possible the member is no longer using the site, I would like the complainant to know that Roommates.com would still like to assist by investigating the scammers that are referenced in this complaint, if that information is still available. I would also like to investigate the claim that a refund request was denied by our Customer Service Department. Roommates.com will not deny a refund to a member that deserves one, especially when it comes to scams.

In regards to scams and Roommates.com, please understand that we are not sitting idly by while scammers do whatever they want on our website. We work daily to keep scammers off of our site, and have many operations running on the back end that keep a large majority of the scammers from even getting on our site. Unfortunately, because many scammers try extra hard to appear as legitimate as possible, some make it onto our site without being caught. But once they become active on the site, it's just a matter of time before they are discovered to be a scam and are subsequently removed.

Concerning the matter of non-paying members not being able to view profiles or read emails, that statement is not entirely correct. Non paying members are able to view profiles, however certain features of profiles are only available to paying members. Non paying members can receive messages from other members, but an upgrade is necessary to read the messages in their Inbox. While some people may think this is unfair, it is simply how our site is set up and we do not hide these facts or try to confuse people when it comes to understanding what is available for free. If a potential member has a question about how our website works, or how it works to be a paying member vs. a non-paying member, they are always welcome to contact Roommates.com and we will be happy to answer any and all questions they may have.

In regards to the topic of sending us an email, and receiving a poor response, I am very sorry if our Customer Service Department has sent out messages that may have appeared rude. It is our goal to write quality emails to anyone who sends us a question, so if a message has been sent out that appears rude or discourteous in any way, I would like to know about this so the situation can be researched and rectified. I understand that sometimes miscommunication can take place between two parties during an email exchange, but an outright rude reply is never an option.

I again would like to reiterate that it is unfortunate that the complainant had such a bad experience with Roommates.com, but if they would like to contact us at Support@Roommates.com to discuss the details of their complaint, I would be more than happy to assist the complainant in any way possible.

Thank you very much for your time,

Matt
Roommates.com Relationship Manager
http://www.Roommates.com

When I went on Roommates.com I posted a room for rent. Right away they sent me info on 3 people who I may want to contact. The strange thing was they all had posted the rooms they were looking were in over 50 different towns in locations some over 2 hours drive away from my listing. So am I to think a person is looking for a room to rent and doesn't care if they live 5 minutes away or 2 hours away? Also the rate the 3 possible tenants were willing to pay ranged from 500 to 1500... again I don't understand how someone can offer to pay so much but not care in what town. In order to contact the potential room mates you must first pay, and I understand this. However it sounds like the people on the site are not real. It sounds like they have fake postings just to get more people to pay. Shameful.

This site is total garbage! most of the emails I ever got were blocked from the site as being detected as fraud...which is all well and good, except I was still nearly scammed. I sent out numerous emails and only got 1 response. As I read the other reviews I can see I am not the only one. I only wish I had read these prior to wasting the 29.99 I didn't have to waste in the first place. And now I just caaan't waaait for Matt from roommates to respond with his useless comment on my post. oh look at that I have a "match" in my email. I can't wait to not read it because I refuse to be defrauded again.

Hi Brondele,
My name is Jessica and I am one of the Relationship Managers on Roommates.com.
I am sorry to hear that you nearly fell victim to a Scammer. We do our absolute best to remove any and all fraudulent accounts as we find them. We also have many safety barriers in place that prevent many scammers from accessing the stie. Unfortunately, Scammers take their fraud seriously and for them it is a full-time job. Often times they create their accounts using legit individuals information and only attempt the scam after they get through our safety net. That is why our Fraud Department works 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. We are constantly looking for those accounts that slip through the cracks.
When an account is removed from the site by our Fraud Department, any email that they sent is automatically removed at the same time. In its place, we leave a notice that lets the recipient know that an email was removed as fraud. This way they don't try to purchase an upgrade in order to read a scam email. They will also not wonder why they got a notice that they had a new email but upon logging into their account not see any email waiting for them.
Unfortunately, I was not able to locate an account for you on our site. I would need more information in order to find it. But if you did purchase an upgrade and only received a scam email, you would be entitled to a refund of your membership fee. We do provide refunds under these circumstances. You need only to contact our Customer Support department.
I am sorry to hear that you were not successful in your search for a new roommate and I hope that you consider giving Roommates.com a second chance.
Either way, I wish you the best of luck and please don't hesitate to contact our Customer Support with any questions you may have.

Jessica
http://www.Roommates.com
Roommates.com Customer Support

I agree. Roommates.com is a huge waste of time and money. I was looking to rent a room in NYC. After upgrading for the 1 month unlimited access, I sent out about 40 inquires. Of the 10 or so that actually replied, 9 were from scam artists. The tenth I'm not sure that he was or not. The site does alert you about scammers. Basically everyone that replied to me, I received a message from the administrators that the user was a fraud and suppressed. Complete waste of time and money.

I had a message on roommates.com site to go to support@roommate.com regarding an issue with my account 9016633 and I got this web page.

Also with this unknown account issue as a paying member of roommates.com I'm being denied access to log into the site.

Roommate.com has been good to me. Period.

Hello,

This is Roommates.com Customer Support. I'm not sure how you were directed to this site from an email we sent you about your account, but I'm sorry you experienced issues logging into your account. That can be frustrating. Especially if you have a paid account. Please contact support@roommates.com or go to the site and send us message. We will be happy to assist you in getting your account issue resolved and issue a refund if you would like. We look forward to hearing from you.

Roommates.com Customer Support
support@roommates.com

Hello cpa10019,

This is Roommates.com Customer Support.

I am sorry to hear you did not receive more valid responses. Roommates.com is a bulletin board service so there will always be some people that are not on the site for the right reasons, but we try to remove them as quickly as possible.

When a fraudulent account is detected by our Fraud Department, the account and any messages sent from that account are automatically removed in order to protect the legitimate members of Roommates.com. Unfortunately, many times scammers don't make themselves known until they get you to email them through their private email address, which Roommates is not privy to. We are doing all we can to protect our members and keep scammers from posting on our site.

If you need roommate locating services in the future I hope you give us another try. I would be glad to give you some helpful tips on utilizing the site.

If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to contact our Customer Support through the website and we will be happy to assist you.

Roommates.com Customer Support
support@roommates.com

I joined because I thought the verification or vetting of each member is a good approach. Total waste of cash. I received responses from matches that were not even close to my criteria. I see that rooms for rent ads on craigslist refer inquiries to the Rommates.com website to see the actual listing. I think its a method to direct business to the Roommates website to generate cash. Bogus Business.
Rebecca in Seattle

I have a fraud roommate from your website.

Her name is Teresa. Phone # [protected]

Her email is teresajoykuhn@gmail

She doesn’t want pay her rent this month & tried to sue me from reminding her the due date. Things are going to very bad here. We have to see each other in court

She experienced with this