Is eHarmony Safe for Men?

Mostly yes, with the limits every dating site has. eHarmony checks members with a short video selfie, lets you block and report people, and gives you three privacy controls. None of that replaces your own habits. Never send money, speak by phone before you meet, and keep a first date short and public.

eHarmony describes an authenticity check. It is a short video selfie that confirms you are a real, live person, compares your face with your pictures and checks that the pictures have not been digitally altered.

The video is not shown on your page. eHarmony says it is deleted after the check, though it keeps two screenshots from it for 30 days. The company also reviews every picture before it appears on the site.

This works best against the most common fake, an account built from somebody else's photos. It does not make a woman safe to meet. A real person can still lie about her age or why she is on the site, so treat the check as one useful tool and not as a promise about any one woman.

The most common loss on dating sites is not a stranger. It is a renewal nobody noticed.

Basic membership is free. The paid tier is sold in multi-month terms that renew automatically unless you cancel before the term ends, and the prices appear inside the app once you are logged in. Put the end date in your calendar the day you pay. If you decide not to renew, cancel before that date, not after.

The other money risk is a woman, real or not, who asks you for something. Never send money, a gift card or financial details to anyone you have not met. A request for help in the first few days, with a sad and detailed story, is the clearest stop sign there is. Report it and stop replying.

eHarmony gives you three controls over what other members see. You can make your page visible or invisible, show or hide when you are online, and show or hide that you visited someone's page.

Hiding your page is not total. Members you have already talked to can still see it, so it will not work against one particular woman you have already messaged. For that, block her. The block option is permanent, which means you cannot undo it, so wait a night if you are only annoyed.

Hiding your own visits has a cost too. You then cannot see who has visited you, and a woman who opened your page is one of the warmest leads you have.

Use the block tool on anyone who is hostile, who pushes after you said no, or who looks like a fake. Use the report option on anything about safety or honesty: abuse, threats, a false identity, or a request for money. A report goes to eHarmony's Trust and Safety team, and the site keeps it confidential.

When you report, stop engaging. Do not argue with the person or tell her you have reported her.

You do not need special tools. Most fakes give themselves away fast.

Look at the pictures. One polished shot, or several that look like one shoot, is a flag. Look at the writing. A page that says nothing specific, or says things that could apply to any man, is a flag. Look at the chat. Replies that arrive at every hour, or that answer a general category when you asked about a detail, are flags.

Then test with something only a local would know. Ask which part of town she likes for a drink. A real woman answers in a line. A fake changes the subject.

Move toward a plan within a handful of messages, and ask for a short call before you meet. A woman who agrees to a call is much more likely to be who she says. One who always has a reason not to is telling you something.

When you meet, choose a public place near your own home. Tell a friend where you are and when you expect to be back. Keep the first meeting to a drink or a coffee, and drive or travel yourself so you can leave when you want.

These habits settle the question for one particular woman better than any badge on a screen.

You will find men who had a bad time on the site and men who did well. Each story is one man, in one city, in one month. None of them is a count.

No site publishes how many fake accounts it has, so nobody can tell you the true share on eHarmony. a dating coach says results depend on the app, your city and what you bring to it. The more useful measure is your own, taken over a few weeks.

Start with the free membership. Take the quiz as you are, add clear daylight pictures and write two or three specific lines for each question. Look at who the site shows you for a week.

Ask yourself four things. Do the women have filled-in pages? Do some of them reply? Do the replies sound like people? Does a call or a drink come out of one of them? If the answer is yes, you have judged the site on evidence, and you can decide about paying with that in hand.