Dating Online – Adult Dating reviews

Adult Crowd

3 Hearts

First Look: Adult Crowd is definitely an online dating site for adults looking not just for relationships, but for sex, so you should expect members to be quite explicit in their descriptions and photos. Some daters profile photos are classed as XXX and can only be seen by paid-up members. Paid membership also entitles you to use Adult Crowd's Hotlist, Super Match Wizard and Early Bird services, so apart from the usual searching facility, which can be narrowed down depending on what you're looking for, there isn't much that a guest (ie non-paying) member can do.

As a guest you can, rather tantalisingly, view members' additional photos (as well as their main profile pic), but you won't have access to their personal information. Just another ruse to entice you into the dating gang, I suspect. There are also video and audio aspects of the site which again, paying members can access.

Quality of Service: Adult Crowd's fee system, like many other adult dating sites, refers to you as a “Guest” until you have handed over your hard earned cash. Gold membership starts at £10.95 if you sign up for a year, and increases to £24.95 if you only want a single month. Platinum membership starts at £15.95 for a year, up to £39.95 for the whole year. There are also options to pay a lump sum for “Lifetime Membership”.

Overall Likeability It's difficult to give much useful information on any online dating site without knowing how everything works. In theory it all looks fine, but there's also that old adage about the types of people who use such sites - some individuals are, of course, seeking genuine relationships, others are simply looking for a bit of uncomplicated sex, but there are also those who set out to defraud innocent members, not to mention the predators and those people who just tell lies. (Okay, that's just me being cynical again). What it comes down to is this: hand over your money by all means, but as Sergeant Phil Esterhaus used to say: “Let's be careful out there”.

Adult Desire

2 Hearts

First Look: Free-to-join FEE-PAYING dating site. Reviewing online dating sites is one of those pastimes that can be highly enjoyable, boring or just plain irritating. In my case, there's a tendency to err on the cynical side and I'm sorry to say this is one of those times. Adult Desire is one of those curious dating sites that you might think you've seen before, and guess what - you have! This is exactly the same site, with the same members and the same navigation etc as Affairs and Dating (see below). It's part of the White Label Dating network of online dating sites that offer individuals the opportunity to host their own dating site. Perhaps I'm just being cynical, but I'm sure there must be a catch there somewhere...

Quality of Service: Having said that, the fees for Adult Desire are slightly cheaper: prices start from £19.95 for a single month and come down to £7.50 per month if you sign up for the year. See Affairs and Dating for more info...

Overall Likeability Maybe it's just me, but I really don't care much for this idea of outwardly presenting two different services that are actually the same one. The difference may be in the way that it's advertised, but as far as I'm concerned we've already seen this one and it wasn't that great the first time.

Affairs and Dating

2 Hearts

First Look: Free-to-join FEE-PAYING dating site. As with many of these types of adult dating sites, Affairs and Dating lets you sign up and view member profiles, but you can only send and read emails when you get merry with the mazumah (hand over the money). You can send a Wink or add members to your Favourites, but that's about it until you upgrade your membership.

Quality of Service: Prices for Affairs and Dating start from £24.95 for a single month and come down to £10.42 per month if you sign up for a whole year. Again, as with most of these sites, you will need to give them your card number (the long number on your bank card) and that pretty much means they can take tons of cash out of your bank account until you cancel your membership. BEWARE! If you aren't sure what this means, have a look at my section on Recurring Fees

Overall Likeability I'm not keen on paying for a service before I've had the chance to judge its worth, and given that there's very little you can do on this site without being a paid-up member, I've only given Affairs and Dating 2 Hearts. I did a quick search for women between the ages of 45 and 55 in my area, and of the 356 results, 15 of these were of the same woman (!), approximately 75 per cent did not have a photo and of those that did, most were sexually explicit. As I've said elsewhere, if you're a bit shy, this may not be the dating site for you.

Ashley Madison

2 Hearts

First Look: Ashley Madison is a free-to-join FEE-PAYING online dating site for what they call “like minded adults”. I found the layout rather irritating, as search results etc., are displayed in the centre of the page below an over-large header. This has the effect of member photos appearing quite small. Enlarging the page helps, except that everything else gets bigger too, so the header takes up even more space.

Also on the header is the link to the Ashley Madison Fantasy Date. This is quite an interesting variation on the usual Chat section and there are some nice touches (like adding a theatrical mask to your profile photo, and a range of romantic/sexy/alluring backdrops). There is a video overview to this feature, as well as a longer introduction which takes you through the process of setting up a chat session.

Quality of Service: Ashley Madison's fee system is cleverly disguised to look more interesting than the usual set-up. This means that until you're a fee-paying member, you are classed as a “Guest”. Guests can send emails and search the site as well as check out who has viewed them. This state of semi-euphoria doesn't last long though, as you'll need to buy credits to read incoming emails, send virtual gifts and use Fantasy Date.

Introductory membership supplies you with 100 credits for the princely sum of £39.00. Elite membership brings the individual price of credits down a little to £109.00 for 500 credits. Ultimate membership is £179.00 for 1,000 credits. To give you a clue to what you get for your money, a first email message is 5 credits (subsequent messages to the same member are free), 30 credits will buy you a 30-minute instant messaging session and virtual gifts are priced at between 20 and 50 credits.

Overall Likeabililty I'm perhaps being a little finicky here, but I find the page layout makes it difficult to really enjoy this particular dating site. The chat aspect is nice, but I don't like the idea of being charged per minute for a feature that many online dating sites provide free.

Be Cougar

3 Hearts

First Look: Free-to-join FEE-PAYING adult dating site. For some reason Be Cougar declare in their advice on uploading profile photos that full, or partial nudity is not acceptable. Considering that there are quite a few photos featuring partial nudity his would seem to indicate that no-one's actually checking member photos. There are various chatrooms with the usual predictable conversations going on, and there's also a Naughty Mode button that, given the so-called nudity rule, seems a bit odd. Anyway...

Quality of Service: Without signing up for the usual fees, you can do a quick member search, but you'll soon be interrupted by being re-directed to the payments page. Naturally, the same thing happens when you try to email anyone, so I'm afraid it's one of those you-might-as-well-get-it-over-with games. Fees start from £1.66 for a three-day trial, £29.99 for a single month, and drop to £7.99 per month if you sign up for the twelve months.

BEWARE! Take particular care with the 3-day trial offer: as it points out in Be Cougar's billing policy, on the day your trial period expires, and every month after that until you cancel, your credit/debit card will be billed at the price of your selected membership package. If you choose the 3-day trial Membership plan, your credit card will be automatically billed at the rate of £29.99 at the end of your trial and every month thereafter until you cancel. You have been warned!

Overall Likeability I'm always a bit wary of fee-paying dating sites, and this one is no different. If you're happy to hand over your cash, then Be Cougar is as good as any similar site, but until you pay, you won't really know what you're getting into.

Be Naughty

3 Hearts

First Look: Be Naughty is a free-to-joinFEE-PAYING The fee system is a little different from the usual system in that you have access to the site without paying. This doesn't last long though, and you'll need to buy credits to read incoming emails and such like.

Click and Flirt

3 Hearts

First Look: Click and Flirt is a free-to-joinFEE-PAYING The fee system is a little different from the usual system in that you have access to the site without paying. This doesn't last long though, and you'll need to buy credits to read incoming emails and such like.

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