Because of the stigma surrounding herpes, most singles with herpes have used at least one herpes dating website in the past, sometimes in combination with regular dating sites. But when you’re using a herpes dating site, you should be aware of these six important tips that can affect your overall experience.
Use herpes dating sites that have a manual profile review process.
Millions of Americans visit dating sites each year to try to find their soulmate. Unfortunately, there are also criminals and scammers. They target lonely, vulnerable people, basically catfishing them and seducing them into giving up credit card numbers, social security numbers, and other financial information.
When it comes to online dating, safety is really important. It’s important to learn to spot profiles that belong to scammers, as well as those that belong to real people who happen to be gold diggers.
There are over twenty herpes dating sites on the internet today. Some of the bigger sites have human customer support representatives and a manual profile review process. After you sign up and create your profile, you’ll have to wait at least 24 hours for your profile to be approved.
During this time, you can browse people’s profiles, but you won’t be able to communicate with them yet. This is so that human workers can look at your profile and approve it. They review all new and changed profiles, and delete profiles that are obviously scammers. They also have a watch list for suspicious profiles.
This is a good thing for several reasons:
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It minimizes your chances of getting scams. Scammers can use software bots to register and create profiles on dating sites in bulk, as well as to contact hundreds of people in just a few seconds. Without manual review, you’ll end up getting tons of fake messages, and you’ll be at risk of getting scammed.
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You’re less likely to feel harassed. According to a recent survey, 57% of women report that they feel harassed on online dating sites, compared with 21% of men. This applies to herpes dating sites as well. Because sites like PositiveSingles and MPWH have stringent requirements for profile depth, require payment, and have manual profile review protocols, users are far less likely to feel harassed or uncomfortable.
A lot of the smaller to medium sized herpes dating sites don’t have the staff or resources to review profiles manually. They don’t really have money to invest in member safety features like that.
How can you know if there’s a manual profile review process? After you finish filling out your profile, you should see a text notice informing you about it. If the site doesn’t have manual profile review, you’ll see some information about how to protect yourself from online dating scams.
2. Use herpes dating sites that are known to be reliable.
The Ashley Madison hack in 2015 was a big deal in the online dating community. The hack exposed thousands of married cheaters across the world.
You can definitely argue that those people were doing something unethical, and that they probably got what was coming to them. But the Ashley Madison hack made it clear that the data that dating sites have about their members can be hacked and leaked.
If you have herpes or another STD, you’re probably careful about the privacy of your online dating profiles. When we rank herpes dating sites, safety and privacy are major factors that we take into account.
The larger herpes dating sites are much better equipped to protect their users’ privacy than their smaller competitors. They genuinely care about their users’ privacy, and they have the desire and the resources to do everything they can to protect you. Most of our top rated herpes dating sites have a dedicated technical team that keeps things up to date, and system bugs are fixed quickly.
Smaller herpes dating sites generally have only one engineer, who generally works part time. They don’t have the technological capabilities to offer sophisticated safety features that can protect their users’ personal information.
However, it’s worth keeping in mind that hackers generally wouldn’t be interested in herpes dating sites. The commercial value of the data is low. However, when you use a herpes dating site, privacy is still something you need to consider.
3. Make full use of the standard membership option.
Some people are sensitive about the price of herpes dating sites , especially if they’re new to using this kind of website. If you want to find your match without paying, you have a couple of options.
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Try free herpes dating sites.
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Use the unpaid standard membership option at herpes dating sites that have a paid subscription option.
If you’re new to online dating and don’t have much to spend, free herpes dating sites could be a good option for you. However, they have both pros and cons. We have an article here that goes into detail about it. When you start understanding the drawbacks of free herpes dating sites, you’ll start to see why they can be a waste of time and effort. There’s no way around it: you’re almost always better off paying for a membership.
What we’re focusing on right now aren’t the sites that are completely free to use. We’re talking about the free trial memberships that many paid herpes dating sites have. These generally let you communicate with other standard members and gold members, and you can send out “winks” to let people know you’re interested.
You’ll also be able to write blogs, comment on other members’ blogs, leave photo comments, and like people’s profiles. Standard members can receive emails and chat messages from paid members, although you may not be able to send them a message yourself.
Some herpes dating sites have ways that you can earn free paid membership. You can often do this by reporting suspicious profiles, writing a dating advice article, or making quality suggestions to the website’s support email.
4. Paid sites have the highest success ratio for finding love.
Paid sites attract people who are more serious about using them, and that means you’re more likely to find a match. They also tend to have higher quality profiles and more activity. This is true for herpes dating sites, as well as other types of dating platforms.
There are a couple of reasons why you’ll have better luck on a paid site:
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There’s a larger dating pool with higher quality profiles. The paid herpes dating websites are larger and better known, so they have a larger pool of members. Herpes dating sites are already a pretty small niche, so small free sites don’t get a lot of new profiles very often. This is partly because they don’t have much budget to market themselves. When new members join, they see that there aren’t many profiles, so they end up leaving. The lack of online safety measures also drives away new users.
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Paid sites have more communication tools. Bigger herpes dating websitesgive you several different ways to communicate with other members. There are usually open online chat rooms, one-on-one private chats, forums, blogs, and direct messages. This gives you a bunch of different ways to break the ice. Free sites usually just have an email option, which can leave the members feeling bored and unimpressed. Some small or medium sized herpes dating sites have forums, blogs, and other ways to communicate, but they often haven’t seen a new post in years.
5. Subscribe to the site’s desktop version, and save 30% on the mobile app.
If a herpes dating site has both a desktop site and a mobile app, your paid membership will generally apply to both. More and more people are starting to prefer to use their phones for online dating platforms, and herpes dating sites know this. For this reason, you’ll often find that the Android or iOS app costs more than the desktop version.
Why is the app so pricey? This is partly because the Google Play Store and iTunes Store get most of their income from paid apps, as do the people who create these apps. The industry standard is that app stores take 30% of the cost of a paid app. For that reason, the herpes dating sites have to charge more for their mobile apps. Otherwise, the cost wouldn’t be sustainable, and they’d lose money.
Only the largest, most popular herpes dating sites have mobile apps. If you subscribe to a site that has both a desktop site and an app, upgrading your membership on the PC version could save you around 30% on the app. You can save any more if you opt for a three month or six month package.
6. Pay attention to the refund policy on subscription sites.
Sometimes, you might pay to subscribe to a herpes dating site, then find yourself dissatisfied with the service. If you send an email to their support, you may find that they don’t have any kind of refund policy, so you’re out the money that you spent.
Most herpes dating sites have a FAQ section that will give you information about their refund policy, if they have one. You can also email their support to find out about it.
According to our research and to users’ reports, most herpes dating sites have user-friendly refund policies. You can usually get a refund within 60 days of payment if you’re not satisfied.
At The End of the Day, Paid Herpes Dating Sites are a Better Choice
The best herpes dating sites out there are pay sites. They do have free trial memberships, and you may be able to earn a free paid subscription. But there’s no way around it -- to maximize your chances of finding love, you’re going to have to pay for a subscription. But ultimately, you’ll be glad you did.
