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Whilst I did not have log-in problems or negative contact with customer service like others have reported, and whilst the design and features of the website are laudable, it is the ethics employed by this service that are my chief concern. It pains me to have to write this about the supposed #1-rated Christian dating site, but what they claim about their membership numbers is unequivocally false. Plain and simple. It is highly deceiving and patently unjust to advertise and cleverly design your site in a way that leads people to believe that all those who they contact are free to reply. What I mean is that most sites use different colors for paid and unpaid member profiles so that you know if a person can respond to (or even read) your email or not. Since most sites will allow unpaid members to at least RECEIVE messages and, in some cases, reply if the sender IS a paid member, I naively assumed that was why there were no visible distinctions of membership level. It was only when I checked the "Sent" section of my email (where it shows if your messages have been read) and I saw that less than 15% of my messages were even opened that it dawned on me why I was having no luck: nearly all the girls I contacted were prohibited from reading my emails unless they became PAID members! Not distinguishing between paid and unpaid members on the actual profiles is a deceptive business ploy to make it appear that they have a larger pool of people with whom you can interact than they actually do. I wasted hours of my valuable personal time writing to people who were never even going to see what I wrote.
If you are considering investing your time and money in this site, then let me demonstrate for you the reality of their membership claims on the assumption that my experience is not exceptional (from reading other reviews I feel this to be a relatively safe assumption). They boast hundreds of thousands of members. Take that number, multiply it by 15% and that is a guestimate of the actual number of people who can truly use the site (i.e. paid subscribers). So, for every 100 "members" they boast, only 15 can truly interact with you. My search results gave me about 250-300 profiles to view (and that was within a 100 mile range of a large city and with very general search parameters). That means that maybe 40-45 of those people could actually reply. The math is simple. Since I have a 3 in 20 chance that any single person I contact can even read my message, if I only find 30 or so of the profiles appealing (my experience is that 1 in 10 will interest me), then my odds are roughly that 4, maybe 5 will get my message. Now, if I myself find 1 in 10 profiles appealing and we assume that level is about the average, then that means that I would get 0.5 responses at most out of those few who get my email. And that's what I got. Not one. Not one single solitary soul responded (and I sent out far more than 30 messages). While these are just rough estimates, even if they were four times better than this (max 2 total responses from all people within a 100 sq mi radius), they are deplorable for the money you have to spend to be a member.
This review site is not being disingenuous. CM's service is well-designed to give you a solid overview of the way a person understands their faith and where they're at in their spiritual journey, whilst supplying you with a flexible and creative format to introduce yourself. The search engine is great, providing you with many options to narrow or broaden your search. However, if more than 80% of the people you discover in using them are unable to even access your email if you message them, then what good is all of it? Three people contacted me in the seven months I was a member. I was interested in one of them. Final tally: seven months, nearly two hundred dollars, hours of wasted time in writing emails to nowhere, a few conversations with one person, and zero dates. You decide if that's a worthwhile investment for you. I'm not wasting any more money on these over-hyped, misleading "Christian" pay sites when I've had a good number of dates, several real relationships, and met some solid people with whom I became friends ALL through free dating sites (both Christian and secular) wherein there are a plethora of people to contact, all of whom can reply if they should so desire. Praise God for those who found a mate, but they are the exception, and not the rule.
How could a Christian dating site be like this? Sadly, as evidenced in our politics, Christian "leaders" seem to have no problem getting in bed with and engaging in the same cut-throat business practices of corporate America. Godly relationships are not their ultimate motivation - greed is. My prayer is that a group of wealthy believers one day feels moved to pool their money into creating a site like this as a 501(c)3 non-profit venture with their goal being to see loving, Christian marriages, not simply to selfishly line their own pockets.
In summary, I would not recommend Christian Mingle to a friend.
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