From The Telegraph:
A premium dating agency has been ordered to refund a client almost £13,000 after it failed to find the woman the “man of my dreams”.
Tereza Burki, 47, paid Seventy Thirty Ltd £12,600 after she was assured they only dealt in “creme de la creme” matches, the High Court heard.
But Judge Richard Parkes QC today ordered the agency to repay her fee, ruling that she had been “deceived” by Seventy Thirty’s then managing director.
Upholding Ms Burki’s claim, he ruled the agency’s then managing director, Lemarc Thomas, was guilty of “deceit” after misleading her about the number of suitors on the site.
The divorced mum-of-three was also awarded £500 for the “disappointment and sadness” she suffered.
I think this says less about the delusions ageing, single women subject themselves to than a British justice system which appears, at least to me, to increasingly view grown women as being rather dim and having no agency. Now it could be the judge simply thought charging gullible fools £12k was not on and made an example of them, in which case I hope he feels equally strongly about fifth-rate universities charging thousands for useless degrees (listen to James Delingpole’s latest podcast for more on that). But I suspect he’s decided this is a special case because she’s a woman; the £500 for “disappointment and sadness” certainly points in that direction. Would he have ruled the same way had a man sued any of the dozens of dating sites which use bots with half-naked avatars to send messages to men which they need to pay to read? And isn’t the bulk of marketing aimed at men men based around claims the product will help them get laid? Can I sue because I discovered some years ago, much to my disappointment, that “the Lynx effect” is a figment of a marketing guru’s imagination? A reader on Twitter sends me this link with some details of her complaint:
What she wanted in a partner was a ‘sophisticated gentleman’, ideally employed in the finance industry. It was important to her that her partner should lead a ‘wealthy lifestyle’, and that he should be ‘open to travelling internationally’. For that reason, it would also have been appealing to her that he should have ‘multiple residences’.
Why is she more deserving of sympathy than a man of similar age who blows all his money on a motorbike in order to impress hot young barmaids?
Ms Burki was shown profiles of men who were said to meet her criteria and be actively seeking a romantic partner like her. For example, one who she found attractive “was pictured perched on the bonnet of an expensive car in front of what appeared to be a substantial house” and she was told that his profile fitted her criteria.
Okay, here’s a picture from OKCupid’s front page:
Does anyone in their right mind think these are representative of lesbians you might meet on a dating site, and that any of those featured on the marketing blurb are from real profiles? I’ve played around on dating sites, and sometimes I wondered if I was looking at a selection of extras from The Lord of the Rings. It seems either judges are as prone to white knighting as the most craven beta, or caveat emptor no longer applies to grown women.
That said, the link does include an instance of an Australian man getting his (substantially smaller) membership fee refunded in 2004 for similar reasons:
The judgment consists of twelve terse paragraphs, each one sentence long, and including one: “The majority of the women in Mudgee and Dubbo did not meet the criteria required by the applicant”, which, read alone, no doubt casts the female population of Dubbo and Mudgee in an unfair light, and concluding with a finding that the conduct of the agency was misleading and deceptive and ordering repayment of Mr Galletti’s AUD 770 membership fee.
If getting people to part with their cash by implying they can score out of their league are grounds for being sued, the advertising industry’s going to get hit pretty hard, isn’t it?
If getting people to part with their cash by implying they can score out of their league are grounds for being sued, the advertising industry’s going to get hit pretty hard, isn’t it?
I do wonder sometimes – why shouldn’t it be?
Yes, sure, we are discriminating grown adults with critical faculties. We should understand “hype” and “fluff” and that everything is not as fantastic as adverts are going to say.
But still…
I dislike much advertising for similar reasons as I dislike much of social media. It gives you an imaginary fantasy world to live up to – or at least, a hyper-selective view of the real world that is sufficiently distorting that it might as well be a fantasy world.
But I think I dislike advertising more fiercely, because someone is deliberately crafting messages with the intention of getting into my head and getting me to do something that they want. Gets creepier when those messages are more personally handcrafted towards yourself, and a strong mark against social media is that they are proactive facilitators of this. I dislike the feeling of being manipulated, and I dislike the suspicion I may be being manipulated without even noticing it.
I don’t know if Ken The Economist is reading this thread, he may be able to fill in the details better than I can, but I understand economists are generally pretty sceptical of the advertising industry. Not so much the negative contribution of making us feel poorer because I don’t have [insert some crap they want to sell me and which I don’t even need], but it can also be a tool that incumbent firms deploy to stifle market entrants, and a way of getting people to buy a relatively bad product when they could have gone and bought a better one.
I do appreciate there is a free-speech angle to advertising restrictions and am uncomfortable with authorities suppressing advertising not just of disapproved products but also of disapproved messages (e.g. banning something because it is “body-shaming”).
But I do think advertising should bear some correlation with reality, and if the expectations it pitches are knocked closer into line with outcomes then I won’t be sobbing tears of pity for the ad execs.
“What she wanted in a partner was a ‘sophisticated gentleman’, ideally employed in the finance industry. It was important to her that her partner should lead a ‘wealthy lifestyle’, and that he should be ‘open to travelling internationally’. For that reason, it would also have been appealing to her that he should have ‘multiple residences’.”
And you want him to want 4 kids, and because you’re 43, that pretty much means you’ll be checking ovulation stuff ASAP and after 9 months of romance, 5 years+ of nappies. Or if it doesn’t work, his whole spare time will be in fertility and ovulation.
In exchange, he gets not a bad face and a 43 year old body. I mean, not bad looking, but you’re hardly Charlize Theron (also 43).
Seriously, love, you’re just not in the competition. You’re offering McDonalds at Michelin prices.
I mean, do people not tell women this stuff?
“Do people not tell women this stuff?”
Of course not, its all ‘You go girl’ and ‘Because you’re worth it!’ from an early age, and it keeps going through adulthood right up to late middle age, when the usual suspects finally give in to reality and stop trying to make out that rather careworn menopausal women are stunning sex symbols.
Egads! Why does that woman in the OKCupids picture have FOUR hands?
If getting people to part with their cash by implying they can score out of their league are grounds for being sued, the advertising industry’s going to get hit pretty hard, isn’t it?
Hey, if it makes ad execs come up with something clever and interesting instead of just showing pictures of scantily-clad women, I’m all for it.
I mean, do people not tell women this stuff?
I’ve heard it suggested that people’s basic view of how the world works is generally fixed during their twenties. I’m not sure whether this is true, but if it is, I suspect it applies here: most women are at their peak physical attractiveness during their twenties, and generally don’t have to make much effort at all in order to get male attention. Hence they come to assume that they’ll always be able to find a man, and this view proves very difficult to shake even after their looks have started to decline. This is especially the case if the woman in question got married in her late 20s/early 30s and so was out of the dating game for a significant period of time, before getting divorced in her 40s and expecting to pick up men like she did when she was still 20-odd.
Egads! Why does that woman in the OKCupids picture have FOUR hands?
Goodness gracious, I didn’t notice that first time round, but now that you’ve pointed it out…
Picture the scene … the International Playboys and Multi Millionaires/Billionaires Club bar. A group of the members are standing around and complaining. “Hey guys! Do you have the same problem as me? I can’t find a woman to date and spend oodles of cash buying her a lifestyle she dreams of, whisking her away on exotic holidays in my private Lear jet and setting up multiple houses in multiple countries so we can visit the house for the odd weekend now and then”.
The rest of the crowd agree and add their anecdotal tales of wealth beyond avarice and the crushing loneliness of not being able to find a woman to share it with. What to do about this situation, eh?
One of them has a brilliant idea. “I know! I’ll contact a dating agency and although they will have a very few select women on their books they just might be able to find one that will fancy me. I know it’s a long shot but what else am I going to do?”
He then realises he should have kept his trap shut as everyone else in the International Playboys and Multi Millionaires/Billionaires Club will also sign on at the self same agency once they realise this. With so few woman willing to risk it all on selecting him he realises that he’s just shot himself through the foot. The rest mutter thoughtfully to themselves and rapidly excuse themselves while reaching for their mobile phones to order their secretaries to sign them up, quick, smart.
Or am I as delusional as the woman in the article if I think that this is a likely scenario?
Answers on the back of a postcard to the usual address …
The rest of the crowd agree and add their anecdotal tales of wealth beyond avarice and the crushing loneliness of not being able to find a woman to share it with. What to do about this situation, eh?
To be fair, I can imagine identifying women with good long-term relationship potential and screening out all the potential gold-diggers being a genuine problem.
If someone identifies their main attribute in a future husband as “he’s got to be dead rich and have loads of properties everywhere” though, I’m not sure that’s the kinda person you really want getting past said screening process…
Phil B
A+++
Just about to write on the high risk activity of souffle making and here is this gem. I agree that:
… a British justice system which appears, at least to me, to increasingly view grown women as being rather dim and having no agency.
And if you ask her what is she bringing to the table to entice this pinnacle of manly desirability she will look at you like you just asked her to calculate the volume of a sphere.
“…which appears, at least to me, to increasingly view grown women as being rather dim and having no agency.”
A bit ‘chicken/egg’ here – which came first, the treatment, or the behaviour?
Dubbo is as full of Aboriginals as you can get without the drink of choice for the majority being petrol. That poor man was cheated.
Organs of the state view the populace though the lens of the group they come into contact with. Hence, coppers think everyone is a criminal, doctors think everyone is a sick overweight bastard who needs his lifestyle regulated and judges think women are dim and have no agency.
@Phil
Or am I as delusional as the woman in the article if I think that this is a likely scenario?
I don’t know, it sounds pretty reasonable to me. After all, the advertisement right under your post tells me that 3,135 Girls Are Online & Waiting to Talk to You! And the one they showed me is totally hot!! This AsianDate company looks AWESOME!!!
@Phil – “Or am I as delusional as the woman in the article if I think that this is a likely scenario?”
Yes you are delusional. The blokes in your setting will have no problem whatsoever in meeting and acquiring a drop dead gorgeous bird to accompany them on their trip.
I wouldn’t put it past the poms to crack down on advertising, which would be a bad thing. The poms are renowned for having the nack of bringing the client to the supplier. Do they still have the Flake ads in the UK?
What she what she wanted in a partner was a ‘sophisticated gentleman’, ideally employed in the finance industry. It was important to her that her partner should lead a ‘wealthy lifestyle’, and that he should be ‘open to travelling internationally’. For that reason, it would also have been appealing to her that he should have ‘multiple residences’.
I bet she did. Rich bloke, lots of foreign holidays, a free house or two in the divorce settlement in five years or so.
A sensible judge would have sent her off with a flea in her ear about being a ‘golddigger’ and having learned a valuable life lesson.
Anyway, why would multi-millionaires be on a dating website hoping for sad middle-aged women to turn up?
Four thirds pi r cubed. That I noticed for myself that the differential of volume equations is the surface area formula remains a (sad) source of pleasure.
Just to turn it around a bit, does anyone know some good marriage counsellors in Brisbane?
How long before women start suing men for playing to their fantasies while chatting them up, then dumping them the morning after?
Bardon,
Spend less time travelling internationally.
My invoice is in the post.
If menopausal munters are prepared to pay £17K for their dreams it seems to be a shame to leave the money on the table for the PR girls with flicky hair.
I, being of the right demographic (erm, age-wise) should charge £14K to go on their books. The problem is the bloody cheek of having it both ways, they’d try to make me pay.
The solution is for us to get together and make an offer at union rates. Elect one of ours as a greedy wealth manager, sell our cv’s plus proof of pulse to the flicky hairs. A secretariat could deal with the meetings (anyone volunteer to be NIV?) for those ex pat, happily married, etc.
We could even monetise it further. Who wouldn’t pay for a clip of Bardon meeting a civil service HR consultant, Mr Ecks in a clinch with a senior lecturer in gender studies…
Any takers?
She got £500 plus her money back. Spent £000s on her lawyer. Basically the judge laughed at her
Egads! Why does that woman in the OKCupids picture have FOUR hands?
Excellent spot, and they’ve done the same thing with another photo too. You’d have thought you’d have people to check this stuff.
@Bardon re me being delusional. I was being sarcastic. I keep saying that the worldneeds a sarcasm font so people can pick this up.
I think that for men rich enough to fulfil all her requirements would have a nifty collection of shitty sticks kept handy to beat the hordes women off who were only too keen to bed and, in their dreams, wed them. Money is its own aphrodisiac when women are concerned.
In short, millionaires have no problem meeting and bedding women and would not have to rely on a dating agency.
Alles klar? >};o)
@PhilB
Apparently the irony punctuation has been proposed as far back as the 1580s
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_punctuation
Tolkein; yup. She also got fined 5 large for slagging the firm off on t’intertubes.
Tereza Burki is now 48, Bulgarian woman living in London with three children from three different husbands. In order to have a fourth child it was important to get the fourth husband, but rich of course. I wonder why? A few of my female friends when they wanted children (and were unmarried), they had an IVF and have lovely healthy children today. But this woman four years later (since she joined the agency) is still single and without this fourth child that she wanted so much!!! She is unemployed and misrepresents herself as some sort of consultant. She doesn’t even have a single property; ex-husband is paying a rent for a flat she lives in with her children. The bottom line is; she is lumbering unattractive house mum, being her best score 3, demanding from the agency to find her a man who was score 9 or 10!! I must sue a traveling agency who sold me an adventure trip, where thy promised a waterfall was breathtaking! Well, when I got there, I thought it was only OK!