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Zoosk

Find Singles to Date

Published on 12/11/2009

Rated 3 out of 5 stars by AppAppeal Editor

21 comments for this app

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What can you use the app for?

Zoosk.com is an online dating site that is well integrated with the major social networking sites. Users can search the site by zip code to find people in their area. Communication with other users takes place via messaging on the site. Users can also send a “wink” to someone they are interested in. The user has a Date Card, which includes all of their personal information. The Date Card consists of The Basics, where the user gives their name, age, relationship status, what type of relationship they are seeking and other personal details such as smoking and drinking. Your Location is where the user enters their country and zip code. About You is where the user enters Your Story, Your Perfect Match and Your Ideal First Date. The Your Photos section of the Date Card allows the user to upload photos of themselves. The Your Likes section is where users enter their major interests, and the Testimonials section is where users can upload testimonials about themselves that are written by other people. Users also have tabs for their ZooskBox, which is the their email, and favorites, where they can see a list of the people they have marked as favorites. The Search page allows for advanced searches, which can be based on Height, Religion, Relationships, Children, Ethnicity, Education or Politics. Users can also search for matches within a certain number of miles of their zip code.

What is the history and popularity of the app?

San Francisco-based Zoosk.com was launched in 2008. The site is headed by co-CEO's Shayan Zadeh and Alex Mayer.

What are the differences to other apps?

Competition to Zoosk.com comes from sites such as Match.com and eHarmony. Both of these sites offer a similar service to Zoosk. Match.com is most similar, with similar pricing. eHarmony is more expensive, but uses personality testing to supposedly provide better potential matches. The Zoosk.com site is easiest to use and offers a very safe environment.

How does the web app look and feel to use?

The Zoosk.com site has a very Web 2.0 look and feel. The site is quite responsive and page loads happen quickly. Navigation is intuitive, with a convenient top menu bar provided for navigation of the user's pages. The menu bar has tabs for Home, Search, My Date Card, ZooskBox and Favorites. There is no advertising displayed on the Zoosk.com site.

How does the registration process work?

Registration to the Zoosk.com site is free and is required to use the site. The registration process asks for email address and password. Validation of the email address is required. Premium membership is offered, and is required to respond to winks and emails on the site.

What does it cost to use the application?

The premium membership is required to respond to winks and emails, to allow free members to send emails to the user, and to find out who has viewed the user's date card. A premium membership costs $9.99 per month for 6 months, $13.33 per month for 3 months, or $19.99 for one month. The site accepts Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, Diner Club, PayPal and pay by check as payment for a premium membership.

Who would you recommend the application to?

The Zoosk.com site is recommended to anyone who is looking for a safe, friendly environment for finding someone to date. The site asks for enough personal information to give the user a good idea about an individual, and the search by zip code feature makes it easy for users to find people in their area. With over 40 million members, there are a wide variety of people to choose from in a given area.

Zoosk Features

Users can search for matches by zip code to find people in their area
Advanced searches can be performed using a variety of different filters
The site has over 40 million users
Free users can send winks to anyone and emails to premium users
Premium users can respond to winks and emails from anyone, and view the people who have viewed their date card
The site provides a safe, friendly environment for meeting people

Zoosk pricing

Permanently free version

Mobile versions

Iphone app

Android app

Blackberry app

Mobile site

Languages

English

Spanish

French

German

Dutch

Portuguese

Chinese

Russian

Japanese

Italian

21 comments for this app

Website

http://www.zoosk.com/

21 comments (newest first)

Greg
on 09 Feb 2012 at 03:16

Do some research... Check out the CEO's photos on google. and here is his linkedin account. This guy has 3 only recomendations from other folks on what a great guy he is. Most CEO's that i personally know have a hundred. http://media.linkedin.com/mpr/pub/image-KX_Y2P0CIjrtctAVjWpItT0W5US8x6C6j5_IfarCsmsUQyY6FX_IOqV8AdWUwssGrub/shayan-zadeh.jpg Does this look like a guy who really cares if you are happy with his site... Not at all, more or less looks like a guy trying to make a quick buck, live life to the fullest while providing little to nothing to the people paying a subscription. Yes... I ALMOST pulled the trigger today on a membership... only to see on the final page the activation fee which was larger than the $19.95 monthly fee I was agreeing to. NO THANK YOU.... So then if you cancel and leave, they send you an email saying no activation fee for the next 24 hours. Thats humiliating and deceiving that you can pay it, or leave and they will not charge you if you come back. Thats NOT the way this country of ours was founded and NOT what this country was built on. Provide a good service and charge a reasonable fee. Not rip whoever you can off and thats too bad.... As this seems to be the stance of the CEO at Zoosk.

Hannah
on 09 Dec 2011 at 21:44

Zoosk is the pits! I totally agree with DebbieG (below). The other websites will at least let you chat with each other. This site is afraid of something and I can't put my finger on it. I can't even log in. The page that comes up when I enter zoosk in the address bar, is a long list of photos of men who have messaged me. I have to pay to unlock all the messages. My membership expired just two days ago and someone was trying desperately to reach me. I hadn't spoken to them for over a week because they were having some personal problems at home. I offered them my support. In doing this, they tried to get in touch with me for help and advice and I couldn't answer them. This is asinine! There is no dating interest in this particular case on the part of myself or the other person. I'm strictly a support system. He has no idea that my membership has run out. I had no idea when I might hear from him again, and wasn't paying attention to my expiration date. Well, wouldn't you know, two days after my sub. expired, he tried to reach me. Three or four times inside of five minutes. What am I supposed to do. I can't reach him now because they won't allow it. He'll think I'm a fine friend and I won't be able to explain anything to him. As far as the home page, I can't get on it. When the site opens, it never opens on the home page and there are never any options to get out of this screen. What a ripoff. We can all report this site to ripoffs.com. K won't like the crappy reviews they get. They shouldn't be in business at all. There's no fairness on this site.

Denise
on 12 Oct 2011 at 01:21

I haven't paid a single penny but they seriously suck!!!

DebbieG
on 09 Sep 2011 at 08:32

Zoosk is terrible, like one member said they spent ages putting up a profile and not even able to chat or read messages without joining and both members have to subscribe. I also noticed that if you pay by paypal the only option available was 3 months subscription, but I also understand that they will continue to take payments from you account after the 3 months. What a rip ...... and to add insult to injury I noticed that some members had mentioned their facebook or hotmail account in the description, (presumably because they could not afford their astranomical subscription), so I put my details on my profile only to find that Zoosk had removed them. I can understand that security is important, but surely Zoosk could compromise, they need to lighten up a little and either allow chat to be free, after all you have to download their software, or reading and sending messages. I certainly will not be conned into their subscription.

Stnason
on 01 Aug 2011 at 15:47

Zoosk is terrible. Do NOT sign up for it. They have teaser women in it paid to keep active profiles. Also note from another user. "This is because if the woman you've sent it to has not paid to the site, she can only see the first few words of your message" Waste of money.

JP
on 21 Jul 2011 at 23:21

They are total rip off i put my info in and they charged my account right away after i didnt want to go through with it i see an amount on my account for more then it shows they said they would charge and on top of that you try and contact them there is only voicemails and no live person they do that on person..o i contacted my credit card company and filed a claim and hopefull once its posted to my accont they will credit back my monies because zoosk is full of shit im glad i did go look at my account after to make sure and there it was monies taken out and more then it showed..zoosk you suck!!

Sarah
on 15 Jul 2011 at 08:13

Even after I closed my profile they continued to take money from my card and they refuse to give it back, 4 months worth of payments and they won't respond to any emails. I'd stay away. Not to be trusted. It's a Vampire Site, they take unauthorised payments and sell your details to other companies.

andy
on 07 Jun 2011 at 13:12

I have used zoosk for two months. I havent subscribed and when i try to send a message is usually says to pay to send it. However i have another way, if you go through the search engine you get hundreds of women who you can view, click on one and scroll to the bottom of the page. Choose SEND A MESSAGE and put your e-mail address as the first wrighting.eg. mrandy@hotm**l.co.uk. This is because if the woman you've sent it to has not paid to the site, she can only see the first few words of your message. Ive got three women who I am e-mailing at the moment, one, from where a girl sent me a message and two, who i sent my e-mail address to.. However im wise to this world and the likely hood of them being fake or real, remains to be seen!!!!!

andy will
on 07 Jun 2011 at 13:10

Jeff
on 27 May 2011 at 01:08

I joined zoosk and they charged me $30 plus a $19.95 "activation fee", something I had never heard of nor have ever seen in my entire life. No other dating site has this "activation fee". So $50.00 for one month is outrageous. But wait, it gets worse! You can email all the women/men you want but none will get back to you as they too have to pay the $50.00 in order to read or respond to your emails. The only way you can chat with them is to download the zoosk chat program and just happen to be online at the same time they are, which is very unlikely. A total waste of time and a serious waste of money. Stay Away from ZOOSK!!

katy
on 26 May 2011 at 11:13

I dont like how they use fake pics in their advertising, they use a friend of mines photo and she isnt even on the site!!

D
on 22 Apr 2011 at 09:23

I agree with the other comments! Zoosk is crap, don't waste your time. The support does not even answer email if they feel that your question is negative!!

Ripped OFF
on 14 Mar 2011 at 11:44

My experience has been much the same... I've come to believe most of those gorgeous profiles on Zoosk are fakes. They're usually so brief and poorly written that it's virtually impossible to craft an intelligent opener - I've had more success with craigs list for Christ's sake. Plus, if you want a three or six month membership -- they charge you a lump sum... they don't bill by month. And the price is NOT what's advertised. The 79$ six month deal is actually 119$ cause they hit you with some bogus registration fee. If you still want to sign up for this crappy site -- get as far as seeing the 119$ fee then back out. You'll get an e-mail waving the registration fee.

Disappointed
on 29 Jan 2011 at 21:53

(Rated 1 out of 5 stars)

I have never received a response to any girl I've messaged on zoosk...which leads me to wonder if my messages are even being received...i'm not unattractive, and have tried every approach in order to get some response...with no luck. I have found zoosk to be a colossal waste of time. As nice as it would be to meet some of the attractive women posting their profiles on Zoosk, it just doesn't seem like it's going to happen. I am not trying other sites like POF and OKCupid...which have garnered better reviews online and hopefully will at least help me get my foot in the door with someone.

barb smith
on 29 Dec 2010 at 16:38

I have sent email after email, I have tryed to cancell my mempership time after time , and they still are robbing my account. I don't know what to do anymore. Please Please Please don't join this site.

motherofjessy
on 01 Nov 2010 at 15:50

I am a former Zoosker who has received a complete refund of my membership monies paid and released from my membership. A business decision on their part, left me unsatified with Zoosk after being a member for over 2 months and when the found they could do nothing to satisify my complaint, they refunded my entire membership monies not a pro-rated amount as most businesses do. I may be the only one, but I have found Zoosk to be a company that cares about customer service who has gone above and beyond when they were faced with my dissatisfaction. To me Zoosk is not that bad or a rip off!! To the comment you can't reply to a flirt without paying a membership fee - have you ever heard the saying 'you don't get something for nothing'?

Maurice Kitchener
on 01 Nov 2010 at 01:04

Zoosk also spies on your editing and if you try to put an email address to comunicate directly to respondents, they will not allow that. I have seen offensive ads and lots of ads that have pictures of dogs, cats, and faceless people whom they shouldn't allow to advertise and yet they do nothing about it. You also cannot go directly to your favourite ads with having to review and waste time searching the pages. It's really an inferior dating website.

Ray
on 23 Sep 2010 at 02:01

For whatever reason, Zoosk won't let me search for anyone under 28. Does anyone know why? After looking through all of the 35-45 year olds in my area, I tried to look at the 25-34 year olds, and whenever I clicked Search, it would automatically change the 25 to a 28.

River
on 03 Jul 2010 at 19:52

DO NOT SIGN UP FOR ZOOSK! Zoosk.com is an internet dating site that is extremely sub par and shady to say the least. First, they have absolute no ‘trial membership’. You can peruse the people there, but cannot message unless you subscribe. You may decide to purchase a one month subscription so that you can see what the website has to offer. In the process of ‘Subscribing’ for just one month at a fee of $29.95, Zoosk makes you jump through so many hoops, making you continue to page after page so that in the end when you finish the process, you don’t notice that they have changed your subscription fee to $119.88. There is no way to get them to refund the charge, either. They simply do NOT respond to any types of negative emails through their ‘support’. The only hope you have is that your credit card company will stop payment for you. I am not the only one with this problem, as a check of ripoffreport.com will show. Zoosk is sneaky, and deceptive. However, it is true that I should have noticed that the fee changed. Okay, they got me. May as well make the most of it, right? For the amount of money they charge, one would think that they would have a premium dating website. Wrong. They are severely lacking in features that it is laughable. One thing they do seem to spend a great deal of focus on are the ‘gifts’ that you can send to other users to impress them. Did I mention that you have to use your credit card to buy ‘Zoosk Coins’ to ‘purchase’ these gifts? Yep, another way they just want your money. The absolute worst part is that Zoosk gives you ZERO control on who can message you, so you will see your inbox flooded with people 20 years your senior or your junior. You also will get messages from people all over the country, as there is no way to filer and only get message from those that live near you, you know the people you may logistically have a chance to have a relationship with? And you absolutely cannot weed out people that don’t share your views on thing like religion, children or perhaps do not share your ethnicity. All of these people, in your inbox daily. And there isn’t a thing you can do about it. This is really worth $119.88, isn’t it? Wait, it gets better! Zoosk does not require that people have pictures on their files, so you will get slammed with those faceless people bothering you as well. You get an anonymous ‘Wink Wink’ from a person who has no information or picture on their file. Lovely, eh? Oh, and you’ll learn to abhor the ‘Wink Wink’ feature. It takes two seconds for someone to send you a ‘wink’ meaning they need only to click a button to annoy you, and doesn’t have to put any time into creating even a half-hearted message to send as an initial contact. I’ve sent Zoosk messages several times complaining about their features, stating that they need to implement message filters, but none of my pleas have ever been recognized. Ever. Ah, but I did get them to respond - I changed my profile’s ‘Story’ section to warn people to NOT sign up for Zoosk. Zoosk has continuously denied these changes, and I recently got a message saying that they will permanently delete my account for violations of their ‘Terms of Service’. However, I can’t seem to find the part in their ‘Terms of Service’ that states ‘We will delete you if you say bad stuff about us’. Hey, but at least I finally got someone at Zoosk to respond to me! Oh, and if it couldn’t get any worse, they read each and every part of your profile, and won’t publish it until they have READ and APPROVED it. Told you they were shady. If you want a FREE dating site, I suggest Plenty of Fish, or OkCupid. Both have wonderful features and are of course, free. They are also not controlled my money-hungry cry babies.

tncdel
on 26 Jun 2010 at 22:06

I was reluctant to try Zoosk out due to its relatively high $30/month fee. But what lured me to do it was the huge number of local chicks posted. So I took the plunge, and for the next three evenings I messaged a total of well over a hundred females ranging in age from 18 to over 40. My message was simple: Please read my profile. Then, if interested, please email me at [my email address]. My profile was worded the same way as I had used on other sites that generated dozens of replies. But from Zoosk I got absolutely NO replies. So it seems that women who post there on that particular site really aren't trying to meet anyone. They just post about themselves for not much different reasons than people post on youtube. So I am warning everyone who wants to meet someone to NOT waste your money on Zoosk.

Anonymous
on 27 Feb 2010 at 02:41

Zoosk can be a bit of a rip off. You have to be very carful if you have premium membership as it will automatically renew and you will be charged. On most sites that have a membership you can cancel on the same day that you signed up and the benefits of you membership will continue until the date expires. Not so with Zoosk: “By canceling your premium membership now, you immediately forfeit all your premium membership benefits. If you wish to continue taking advantage of premium membership benefits before the next payment is due, cancel at a later time (before the next payment is due.)” So you have to remember to cancel as close as possible to the cut off date. This is outrageous; I view it as a scam. Zoosk says this about it: “We hate worrying about paying bills as much as you do. That's why we automatically renew your membership so you have one less thing to worry about. Remember that you can always cancel your membership by visiting the settings page and if you are paying via PayPal, it is a one time charge and will not automatically renew.” The above statement from Zoosk is crap, it is only another way to extract money in a sneaky way, but they can not do it with pay pal for technical reasons, if they could they would. They could easily change it so benefits of your membership will continue until the date expires, but they do not as extraction money from you in anyway possible is the goal. The other things to look out for is coins, it will top up automatically if you don’t turn the function off. Zoosk should have the auto-refill set at off, so it you wish you can turn it on. Zoosk say this: “We want to make it easy for you to send gifts, unlock conversations, or send a special delivery to that special Zoosker. That's why we offer the option to automatically refill your Coins balance when it reaches 10 or less, so you have one less thing to worry about. Remember that you can always un-check this option when you purchase Coins by credit card, or by visiting Settings, and then Coins to turn this option off after your purchase. If you are paying for Coins via PayPal or bank transfer, it is a one-time charge and will not automatically refill.” One less thing to worry about, what crap, they are hoping you will not notice that you have to turn it off. The price of gifts is outrageous, some gifts are 750 coins, which could cost at the cheapest rate .106 cents per coin would be 750 x .01067= $80. At the high end it would be 750 x.1578= $118.42 that’s eighty dollars for a virtual gift at the cheapest rate. How zoosk can justify such an outrageous price for a virtual gift is beyond me. Its just click spend money, click spend more money. On premium membership all gifts should be free, and charging up to $1.58 for delivery conformation and special delivery up to $2.37 is another rip off. In short Zoosk is a money extraction machine. I sent them an email asking to explain but all I got back from them was a copy paste answer, which did not answer ANY of my questions.

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