I know a former employee of Lunch Actually, and from what she
has told me, I have to agree with some of the points raised below.
It is true that members are "rated" and those with good ratings and
are more eligible are "used" often for 1st dates to create a good
impression and reduce chances of refunds. Often, after that, not
much thought goes into the matching. Sometimes members call up to
ask why they were matched with someone and the consultants can't
even give a reasonable answer. They claim to discuss among
themselves in order to match since not all consultants meet all
members, but that is not true. To hit their "quota" of number of
matches and dates per month, they just do it as quickly as
possible.
Also true that there are lots of women in their database, so the
men get many dates, sometimes 3 a week, while some women wait 6-8
months for one. Some clients are smart and try to get into
consultant's good books with frequent visits with gifts or food, so
they get more attention and better matches. But I suppose that's
how it works anywhere.
The coaching videos seem really dumb as well- teaching things
like how women should have long hair and nice makeup to get a man
etc.
https://lunch-actually.pissedconsumer.com/lunch-actually-singapore-dating-agency-is-a-scam-20150312607179.html
Please do NOT join Lunch Actually Dating Agency
1) Lunch Actually (LA) claims to match you with someone
'holistically' and taking into account your "preferences". They
claim that the only thing they do not guarantee is chemistry. It is
NOT true. While most of the time, LA members are truthful abt their
personal details, LA will LIE about it in order to 'create' a
match. They can LIE abt anything just to push out a date. Eg, if
you say you don't want to meet someone who drinks heavily, LA will
LIE to you and cheat you into going on a date which they 'have
painstakingly looked through and is a high match'. One date cost a
few hundred dollars, and you end up meeting someone you will not
even consider. Your date also ends up wasting his/her time as
he/she had given truthful details to LA without knowing that LA had
lied to you. Your preferences are not important to LA. Your money
is.
2) LA has more female than male members. Ladies can wait up to 8
months in between dates. Man gets one or two dates per month.
Chances are, the female members will end up getting hitched by
someone through their own social circle and forfeit the rest of
their package (that means LA gets to keep the money). Although it
seems like the man has a wider pool of selection, male members are
likely to end up going on dates with people who are poorly
matched.
3) LA allows members to request for a full refund within 7 days
after going on their first date. If you are not happy with your
first date, you can get all your money back. So, you are likely to
get someone decent on your first date. And GOOD LUCK for your
subsequent dates. You first date may be someone you are looking for
as LA may have matched him/her according to your criteria just to
give you a false good impression. BUT you may not be matched
according to your date's preferences. So you will still end up
wasting a date because the other party is not interested in
you.
Some unlucky people (possibly those who appear nice and received
decent/good feedback from their first few dates) will be
unofficially 'selected' by LA (without their knowledge or consent
of course) to be the first date or 'service recovery' date for
other LA members. It means that whenever LA gets a new/difficult
customer, they will pick this 'selected' candidate out to go on a
date with their new/difficult members. If you are granted the
'honor' of being 'handpicked' by LA to do the 'job', you are likely
to end up with dates with new members or angry people who have just
complained abt LA. (since LA gets a lot of complains). To make
things worse, if the LA member is someone LA knows that you will
not be interested in, LA will either LIE to you about their
particulars or keep you in the dark. Eg, Member A complains about
LA or his/her previous bad date. LA will do service recovery by
giving member A a free make up date. Then LA will go to their "nice
members list" and pick member B to go on a date with member A.
However, member A is a smoker and LA knows that there's no way
member B will agree to go out with someone who smokes. So LA will
either LIE to member B or keep member B in the dark. In other
words, LA makes use of their members to help them make more money
from other people.
4) Whenever LA's lies were found out and exposed, they will
either insist that it was the member who had given them the wrong
information (which is not always true) or they will brush it off by
offering a free make up date. There's no point taking up the make
up date because the same problem will repeat.
5) LA has 'highly trained' consultants with high turnover rate.
The consultants seem to be ONLY trained to be polite, politically
correct when communicating with their members and pushing members
to sign up for their workshops. They are not genuine about helping
their members get a good date. The matching is done using a
computer system anyway. Members' details and/or preferences are
manually tweaked or almost completely changed in order to increase
the number of matches (drastically). Any Tom or Harry can be
matched to Jane or Mary.
LA charges higher prices than all other dating agencies in
Singapore. Save your money and time. Do NOT join LA.
