MySingleFriend is a dating site that was founded in 2004. It is the brainchild of the Channel 4 TV presenter, Sarah Beeny, and her husband, Graham Swift. Sarah was a renowned matchmaker who had a track record of fixing up a lot of her friends. So she decided to create a dating site to help other people, albeit maintaining the “friends” angle.
That is, just as she had been helping her friends find their ideal matches in real life; in the site, a user will get his/ her friends to help in the search for the ideal match. And with that, MySingleFriend.com was born.
The website says that it has about 200,000 members. By every standard, that is a very small member base for a dating website. It does not even compare to the leading dating sites (in terms of members) that easily have upward of 20 million members. Thus, the main problem that will plague MySingleFriend can be seen straight away. As we like to say, the more fishes in a pond, the easier it will be to catch a fish.
It is not surprising that in a digital world, finding love can also be done digitally. MySingleFriend is one of the dating sites out there that are helping to connect singles. The site advertises as helping you to “fall in love with love again”.
Yes, My Single Friend is legit. It is not a scam dating site because they will never steal your money or credit card details. And you will receive any service you subscribe for without a problem.
Falling in love with love can only be a promise of helping singles get a happy long term relationship. One big question is whether that is just an advert blurb or whether MySingleFriend lives up to its promise to help singles fall in love with love again. Also, you might want to ask how MySingleFriend differs from the other dating sites out there, and why you should choose MySingleFriend over the others. It is also important to ask whether MySingleFriend is legit.
My Single Friend review will examine MySingleFriend.com in order to provide the information that will help you answer these questions and more.
History – Overview
MySingleFriend has “fall in love with love again” as its tagline. Flings and hookups seekers do not talk of love; thus, MySingleFriend is for the seekers of long term relationships. Also, anyone can use MySingleFriend no matter the sexual orientation. As a man or a woman, you can seek a man, a woman, or men & women in the platform. That means it is LGBT friendly.
Also, MySingleFriend is focused on the UK market. As a result, most of its users are from the UK. However, it also serves some 247 countries worldwide. So whether you are straight, gay, or bisexual, you can search for singles near you and beyond.
Who is it for – Overview
MySingleFriend is legit. It is not a scam dating site. There are too many scammers online not to ask whether an online platform is legit before joining. When it comes to dating sites, getting ripped off is the least of the worries. Being served disappointments and heartbreak can cause unquantifiable damage. Thus, before signing up to any dating site, it’s important to determine that it is legit, and not another scam.
Before answering whether MySingleFriend is legit or not; you need to know that many reviewers easily throw the words “legit” and “scam”. Very often, we find reviewers attaching legit to any platform that they (the reviewers) like, and scam to any platform that they do not like. We, on the other hand, try to be more objective.
Out first test of legitimacy is legality. In this regard, any legit dating site will have to be 100% legal. MySingleFriend ticks this box. The website is powered by The Dating Lab Ltd, which is a duly registered company in the UK (with registration number 5844348, and VAT number GB 921 880 618). Also, MySingleFriend is a member of the Online Dating Association (ODA), which means the platform must meet certain operating standards and will be responsible if there are worrying trends or serious matters of concern. Suffice it to say that scam sites are neither powered by reputable companies nor members of industry recognized associations.
Another check of legitimacy is reputation and visibility. MySingleFriend also ticks the box. The founder and owner is a popular figure and influencer. Also, the website has been featured by reputable industry watchers and publishers that include The Telegraph, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Daily Mail, and more. Suffice it to say that the scam sites hide in the shadows; there is no way a scam site will be recognized by these reputable industry watchers.
Another check of legitimacy is the test of time. MySingleFriend was founded in 2004, which means it has been operating for about 15 years. In our opinion, scam sites are usually short-lived. It’s only a matter of time before their scamming schemes are exposed; and with such exposure, they close their virtual doors and disappear.
However, the ultimate test of legitimacy is “fit for purpose”, which is how well the service delivers what it promises. It is not hard to see why this is the ultimate test of legitimacy; if a dating site performs miserly in connecting quality singles, it wouldn’t matter if it is 100% legal or endorsed by industry watchers or have been operating for ages.
In this regards, you can find some success stories on the landing page of MySingleFriend.com which suggest that the dating site has actually connected singles. However, if you know better, you’ll be sceptical of self-published success stories. Thus, we checked the independent review platforms to see if we’ll find any success stories. Though we didn’t find any marriage stories, we found stories of users who got promising dates. However, it must be said that MySingleFriend is severely limited by its very small user base. Since the user base means that there’ll be few matches; there will be fewer dates, and even fewer success stories.
So is MySingleFriend legit? For being 100% legal, having been recognized by industry watchers, having operated for about one and half decade, and for actually having helped some singles “fall in love with love again”; it’s safe to say that MySingleFriend is legit.
Legitimacy – overview
A safe dating site is a no-brainer. The personal information that you submit to use a dating site is sensitive data must not be allowed to leak out to unauthorized parties. With a fee-based site like MySingleFriend, you’ll also submit credit card details. While the site itself may not rip you off, leaking your payment instrument detail will leave you exposed to all fraudsters out there. Thus, safety (adequate protection of users’ data) is a must.
MySingleFriend ticks the box in this regard. The platform states in its privacy policy that a number of precautionary measures are in place to protect users’ data. One such is the use of Transport Layer Security (TLS) to create a private channel for the transmission of all data between your device and the servers of the platform. The data is also encrypted to ensure that it cannot be read even if intercepted.
Know that TLS is the successor of SSL (secure sockets layer) which has been the industry standard, making it somewhat of “superior” technology. Thus, by going beyond industry standards to use “superior” encryption technology, in addition to the other physical and administrative measures in place, it is safe to say that MySingleFriend is safe in protecting users’ data.
Another safety concern in dating sites is that of being exposed to scammers posing as users. In this regard, it should be said that MySingleFriend is one of the only dating sites where dating profiles are individually vetted by real persons before going live. How do we know this? MySingleFriend boasts of it. Why do we trust their claim? Their small user base. The vetting is aimed at identifying and kicking scammers from the platform. Though, there is no guarantee that all scammers can be so identified and removed; with the rigorous check by real persons, MySingleFriend is less likely to be filled with scammers.
Safety – overview:
As mentioned, MySingleFriend.com works as a social dating site; you simply cannot use the site without roping in your friends. If you are wondering how the friends come in; if you are signing up to MySingleFriend.com by yourself, you’ll need the help of your friends to create your profile.
That is, when signing up, you’ll name a friend; then the friend will receive an email from MySingleFriend requesting him/ her to write a brief description of you. However, you don’t need to worry about your friend bashing you; you’ll get to approve whatever your friend writes about you, and add to it (if you choose to), before it goes live on the site.
MySingleFriend.com is unique in this approach in the dating world. According to the dating site, having your friends write your profile and matching singles through their friends’ descriptions is “a no-nonsense approach to dating”. However, the approach has seen plaudits and trolls alike.
Some plaudits pitch tent with MySingleFriend that the approach is a no-nonsense one, meaning that profiles are more likely to be true. It is not news that many profiles in dating sites are fakes; neither is it news that persons tend to have an inflated view of self, which makes being true to a self-appraisal (such as writing a dating profile) harder than it seems. This means that, most often than not, it is the persons who are closest to you (your friends) that can best give a true description of you.
However, the trolls will jump in to say that though the approach is designed with the aim of producing “more truthful profiles”, there is no guarantee that its profiles are any more truthful than those of the regular dating sites which are written by the users themselves. First, when you are to name a friend, instead of putting a real friend’s email, you can simply use a burner email (an anonymous email account with other names though owned and operated by you). Then your second self will receive the MySingleFriend request to write a profile for your real self. The bottom line is that MySingleFriend can easily be defeated; and any user, who chooses to, can simply write his/ her own profile.
Secondly, even when you name a real friend, it is unlikely that your friends will hang you out to dry. For example, if I was to receive a MySingleFriend request to write a profile for someone, I don’t think I will write “Too deceitful to be trusted; Please, stay off”, even if that was how I truly felt. Then, there is the problem of collusion. After all, true friends are supposed to put heads together in certain things; and I don’t see why this (writing a dating profile) should not be one of such things. The bottom line is that; even when it is your friends writing the profile, there is no guarantee that it will be any truer.
Then there is the fact that a profile that is written by your friend will not go live on the site until you have approved it. I don’t know of any person who will approve and let a profile full unsavoury remarks about him/ her to be displayed to potentially everyone in the world. Thus, a profile that a user disapproves of will not go live on the site. In our opinion, in that situation, only one thing will be achieved; a strained relationship with that friend who wrote the profile.
Plaudits of the MySingleFriend approach also mention that it takes the burden of writing a profile off a users’ shoulders. It is not news that some persons have a hard time describing themselves. It is also not news that the profile creation process of many dating sites is lengthy, which can easily make it writing a profile become a chore. Are you finding it hard to describe yourself; or do you find the profile creation process daunting? Then MySingleFriend.com is a perfect dating site for you.
However, the trolls still have something to say. It’s more of questions. One such questions are: what if you do not have any friends? If you think, it is not possible for someone not to have any friends, you’ll have to think again. Many friendless fellows go online to get one. In this case, if one is that friendless fellow, and hopes to find love in a dating site, MySingleFriend just dashed those hopes.
Another question is: what if you want to keep it discreet? Let’s face it, many people use dating sites because of not having the confidence to walk up to someone to kick-start something. Now, you are supposed to have the confidence to tell your friend to help you out. And good luck to you if you happen to be in a place that still has a thick stigma around online dating. Yes, that is what friends are for – to help each other out, even boosting the other’s confidence. But what if you’ll only want to let your friend in on your online dating journey only at a later time?
How it works – overview
There are two ways to register to use MySingleFriend.com. The first is registering by yourself and the other is being registered by a friend.
When registering by yourself, you will be required to submit your gender, who you are interested in, the age range of the singles you are interested in, your date of birth, and your email address. You’ll also have to nominate a username and password; then you can hit “Join Free Today”. Alternatively, you can join via Facebook. To go through that route; hit “Join with Facebook”, log into your account, and the basic sign up info will be extracted from your Facebook account.
Though MySingleFriend sells “having your friend write your dating profile”, it does not mean that you have nothing to do in the creation of your profile. After logging in with your login details, there is an “About you” section where you have to answer about 10 questions to supply certain information about yourself. This includes your: drinking and smoking preferences, height, body build, religion, ethnicity, number of children, education level, employment status, and profession.
However, there are drop-down menus that make answering these questions a breeze. It is only when answering the profession question that you’ll have to use your own words to describe what you do. MySingleFriend even simplifies it to a fault. Users may choose not to answer all 10 questions, because, with at least 5 questions answered, your profile will fly.
Following the drop-down menus is a box where you are to “tell us a few interesting things about yourself”. There, you can highlight your personality. However, this self-written description of self should not take time; it is limited to only 20 words. And because MySingleFriend really does not want to trouble you (the direct user) with profile creation, this self-written description is made optional.
You can then proceed to add a profile picture, as well as any other photos you choose to include. After that, the “Your Friend” page opens where you’ll have to fill your friend’s name and email address. It is this detail that MySingleFriend will use in mailing your nominated friend and request him/ her to write your “dating profile” (or more appropriately, to write a description of you that will appear on your dating profile).
Finally, you’ll be given the option to upgrade to a paid subscription right from the go. If you’ll rather test the waters before parting with your money, simply hit “No thanks, I’ll do this another time”, and you’ll be done with profile creation. The whole process should not take more than ten minutes. After your nominated friend writes his/ her description of you, MySingleFriend will notify you. You’ll have to review it, add a comment (if you choose to), and approve of it; after which MySingleFriend will include your profile in their member base.
The other route to registering in MySingleFriend (being referred by a friend) only takes a backward route. You as a user of the dating site can sign your friend up; you’ll write the detailed description of the friend, and supply the friend’s name and email address. Then your friend is mailed to review what you have written, add comments and to supply the basic information to complete the profile.
Signing Up – Overview
The profile of dating sites is an essential element, as it is what introduces you to everyone else. You want to be able to look at a profile and know a whole lot about the individual already. Thus, a dating profile should not only contain basic user information but should also provide insight into the individual’s interests and values. Profiles in MySingleFriend does relatively well in this regards.
Users’ profiles displayed in the site consist of 6 parts as follows:
Profile Quality – Overview
In terms of getting to meet other singles, MySingleFriend offers more ways than virtually every other dating site in the business because of the friends’ interaction that the site fosters. In some sites, the only singles you can connect to are those the site suggest to you as possible “matches”; in other sites, you get the “matches” list to connect to, but you can also search the site’s member base to find possible matches yourself. However, in MySingleFriend, you get the “matches” list which the site suggest to you based on your match preferences, you can use the search tool to find matches yourself, and your friend can suggest matches for you.
If you do not trust the algorithm of a singles matching site, then you’ll want to be able to search the site’s member base and get your matches yourself. MySingleFriend allows that. While this might sound like a basic feature that every dating should have; it isn’t. In fact, in one of the best dating sites out there, you are limited to only matches suggested to you (Yes! eHarmony, we have eyes on you).
Also, we were impressed with the search tool of MySingleFriend.com. You can search and filter singles using a wide range of criteria. Apart from the usuals, such as age, gender, location; you can also filter singles using body build, height, employment status, education level, number of children. You can also filter profiles to view only users whose preferences you match; the search result will be similar to what the “reverse matches” feature of Match.com produces. That is users who are looking for someone like you, though you may not be looking for someone like them. What we like most about the MySingleFriend search tool is that you can filter members based on when last they were logged in. With this search criteria, you are less likely to have inactive profiles in your search result.
It is also interesting that the interaction of your “friends” does not end with helping with profile creation. You friends can suggest matches for you. However, you will not just have different profiles thrown at you that you’ll lose track of. Your friend can have the suggested profiles placed in a special folder for you to consider at your own time and pace.
Making Connection – Overview
When you are able to view profiles of singles in a dating site, you’ll want to make connections. For that, you’ll want a lot of safe communication tools. MySingleFriend does not wow with the options provided, but they have all the basics covered.
There is the usual “mail” messaging tab. But before going into that, the “Who Likes who” tab needs a mention. In the page, you’ll find sections such as: who’s viewed me, who I’ve viewed, likes you, you like, mutual likes, and bookmarks.
You can follow your activity on the site using the “Who likes who” tab. If you hit “Likes” on another profile user, the profile will be saved into your “you like” page. Mind you, the user will be notified. When any user likes your profile, you’ll also be notified, and you can find the user in the “Likes you” page. If a profile you like, likes you back, or vice versa, you have a mutual match. Thus, the “likes” feature is a mild way of making a connection.
When you are ready to move to a more engaging conversation, you can then use the private “mail” messaging feature. You can follow your messaging activity using the “mail” tab. If you do not want to go into composing your own messages, MySingleFriend also has a lot of pre-set messages (one-liners) that you can throw to your matches.
However, it was kind of disappointing that MySingleFriend does not support anonymous phone calls. Having to make a voice call with someone over the phone is important to any long term relationship. However, not wanting to give up your private phone number right from the start is understandable (even advisable). Thus, dating sites have started offering an anonymous call feature, where members call ID will be replaced with computer-generated numbers when calling each other.
Making a connection
That there is an upgrade button when signing up tells you that MySingleFriend is a subscription-based service. Somehow, people view the fee-based dating sites as more legit than the free ones. However, you won’t want to dig a deep hole into your finances to use a dating site, so you’ll want rates that are as low as possible.
MySingleFriend has only one paid service plan, which is separated into three packages using three billing periods – one-month package, 3 months package, and 6 months package. This means that users will get access to the same features no matter the package that is purchased; the only difference between any two users of the service will be the length of time he/ she can access the service.
The one month package cost £28.00; the 3 months package cost £55.00, which works out to £18.33 per month to give a 49% cost saving; while the 6 months package cost £79.00, which works to £13.17 per month to give a 64% cost saving. MySingleFriend also has a 5 days package which cost £5.00.
Just as it is in all the subscription-based services in the market, you’ll save more by purchasing the longer term packages. To the question of whether MySingleFriend is expensive; it certainly does not rank among the highest priced dating sites in the industry. However, it is not by any means cheap.
However, you do not have to spend your money if you do not want to. This is because MySingleFriend has a free plan. However, it is not just the presence of a free plan that excites in this regards; after all, all paid dating sites also have a free plan. What excites about the free plan of MySingleFriend is how much access to the service users get. In fact, in our opinion, of the paid dating sites, MySingleFriend has one of the best free plans.
In the free plans of most of the other dating sites in the market, communication is zero. You cannot receive or send any message. Apart from being able to complete a profile, having your profile displayed in the site, and being able to browse other profiles (albeit without seeing the profile photo), the only other thing that the free plans give is sending virtual winks.
However, the free plan of MySingleFriend is superior in that you can do a whole lot more with it. When browsing the site and viewing other users’ profiles, photos are not blurred out. You can see who has viewed your profile. You get to see the photo(s) of the profiles you are checking. You can receive and read messages from other users; it’s virtually only MySingleFriend that allows you to read messages as a free account user. You can also send/ reply messages, but only with the pre-set one-liners.
However, it must be said that no matter how superior the free plan of MySingleFriend is, it is still limited. That is why some service providers give time-limited free trials so that users will be able to access the full range of features that are provided free of charge. MySingleFriend does not offer free trials. You’ll have to make do with its free plan to test the service free of charge. If you want to test the full range of its service, you don’t need to commit to a long term subscription. MySingleFriend has you in mind with its 5 days package. Admittedly, you will not “fall in love with love” in 5 days. So the package is clearly for those who want to test the full range of its service without forking out the sums for the long term subscriptions.
Pricing – Overview
We like service providers that stand behind their service. Many dating sites in the industry do that with a service guarantee, where they undertake to give you an additional time of free service if you do not find an ideal match within a specified period as a paid user.
MySingleFriend stands behind its service with a refund policy. That is, if you are not satisfied with the service, you can get your money back. This comes off as a plus to MySingleFriend because not many dating sites out there do refunds. If you’ll like your money back instead of being given additional time on an unsatisfactory service, then you’ll like MySingleFriend. However, there are some requirements to qualify for the refund.
You must cancel your subscription within 14 days of your initial payment. If you have not used the service at all at that time, you’ll get a full refund. However, if you have used the service at that time, you will only get a partial refund calculated, which is your payment less “a daily usage charge”.
However, you will not be eligible for a refund if you are not a new user of the site and if as a new user; this is because refunds apply only to the first ever payment. Even as a new user, you will not get refunded if your subscription is for less than a month.
Refund – overview
MySingleFriend allows you to browse anonymously with its Bookmark feature. Know that with most of the tools in a dating site, the checked profiles will be notified of your activity. For example, if you like a profile, the user will be notified. But when you Bookmark a profile, the user will not know.
This is a nice little feature, as it allows you to save profiles that you are not very sure of at first glance.
These are preset messages that you can use to break the ice and start a conversation. However, these messages are designed purposely for the free plan. It is wonderful that as a free account user, you not only get to see messages sent to you but to also reply to them with these one-liners. At least, the sender of the message can know that you are interested in him/ her.
Murphy’s law rings true all the time – anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Thus, no matter how effectively a service is running, there will be customers who will have issues. You don’t want to wait until you have an issue with a service before you consider whether the service provider will swiftly help in the resolution of any issues that their users may have. You may even have some questions and you’ll want a service provider that readily answers users’ questions.
For direct contact with a support agent, MySingleFriend supports an email service and a telephone service. The email address to send your submissions is admin@mysinglefriend.com, while the phone number to call is 020 8738 2453.
It’s been said that MySingleFriend is unique in the dating world because it is the only dating site where the user has to nominate a friend to write the user profile. Many persons are not impressed with the approach. What if one wanting to join the site has no friend? What if one will rather keep the fact that he/ she is using a dating site discreet?
The biggest complaint about MySingleFriend is a small number of matches. With only just about 200,000 members in the site, it’s not hard to see why matches are hard to come by. Except you are resident in a big city, you will find that MySingleFriend has too few matches with every search enquiry.
The main highlight of MySingleFriend is that it is a legitimate social dating site where every user has his/ her friend in on the action. Most importantly, every user’s profile in the platform was written not by the particular user but by his/ her friend. While the unpopular approach saves a user the burden of writing a dating profile, the main selling point is that the users’ profiles are a better reflection of who the individuals are.
However, on closer examination, the “advantage” of the profiles being more truthful easily disappears. Users can use a burner email instead of a friend’s and write the description themselves. There is the problem of collusion, and friends can be patronizing and will not want to make unsavoury remarks.
With its unpopular approach to the creation of dating profiles, the process is relatively easy in MySingleFriend. However, when completed, the profiles are detailed and will provide quality insight into the user. The search feature of the platform is also very advanced as it allows you to filter profiles using a wide range of parameters. Another good thing about MySingleFriend is that its free plan is relatively feature-packed, as it allows some level of communication.
However, MySingleFriend is plagued with a small user base; and the cascading effect of that is that users will have a small number of matches. Few matches mean that users are less likely to find the ideal match. Thus, without mincing words, while MySingleFriend is a legit dating site, you are more likely to “fall in love with love again” with some other dating sites.
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