Dear Grans,
At the age of 73, after much thought, I decided to sign up one last time with a Christian Dating Agency that I had not tried before.
It is quite high profile, advertises among others in The Spectator and Private Eye, and costs £50 per month for basic membership.
The agency starts well by sending as part of your membership a professional photographer to your home to take the photos for your profile.
However, on receiving my first list of seven possible contacts, I was very disappointed to discover that none of them had any interest for me at all.
I now understand that the only criterion used for matching was age.
So they included men who were mainly on very basic employment levels such as taxi driver, car valeter, care worker etc.
I have also received a message on their site to my inbox from a man whose details were not in my list, that reads as follows:
'Can you fix up massage it won't let Apip says error.'
Quite apart from the fact that this sentence has spelling errors and an indecipherable word, right next to it is my email address. I cannot help wondering if the writer is familiar with the internet.
I am a retired teacher, with postgraduate qualifications in psychology and German Studies, as well as an ongoing interest in journalism and spirituality.
My profile was changed by the agency from my first person answers to questions on their website, written very carefully, to third person description; this results in very stilted language.
The website has spelling and grammatical errors in it that make me question why on earth I am doing this, as the overall impression is unprofessional.
The site sends invitations to repeated Zoom meetings, something I heartily dislike and have avoided in general up to now.
To put it bluntly, I don't want to be seen as the oldest on the screen.
I have also been offered, at no extra cost, a phone consultation 'coaching call', "to explore any particular issues you may have and how to overcome anything that might stop you being successful in finding your soulmate".
Well, I had seven years of counselling to enable me to have the courage to divorce my narcissist husband after a long marriage.
This was followed by 22 years of six monthly depression every year. I now understand this to have been the product of the emotional abuse and coercive control in the marriage, and was in fact caused by Complex PTSD.
I have finally been free of depression for the past three years, and am living the life I always longed for, with a beautiful horse I see every day too.
But a horse is not a husband.
What concerns me is that so far, £100 has left my bank account to this agency, with very little except a few photos to show for it.
My payments of £50 per month are on Direct Debit.
I was told initially on signing up that I was contracted for a year. However, I am prepared to cancel the Direct Debit and argue that under Consumer law, the product that this company offers is not fit for purpose.
Do I have a right to do this?
I would be very grateful for your feedback.
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