What happened to the old free date com website?

So I've been down this rabbit hole for a while now and honestly I'm exhausted. Every site you sign up for has the same play—lure you in with "free" access, then lock everything interesting behind a premium wall. I've wasted more money than I care to admit trying to find something that actually delivers.

The trial cancellation thing is especially frustrating. You forget by one day and suddenly there's a charge on your card you didn't see coming. Has anyone actually gotten money back from these places? I filed a dispute with my bank once and it worked, but I'm not sure if that's the standard route.

Would love to hear from people who've found workarounds or platforms that are genuinely upfront about pricing. Drop your experiences below.

Verified profiles make such a difference. Platforms that require it have a noticeably better signal-to-noise ratio.

Also worth knowing about: rendate.site.

After trying probably a dozen platforms over the past year, here's what I've landed on:

Response rate is everything. A smaller platform where people actually reply beats a huge one where messages disappear into the void.

Happy to answer questions if anyone wants more detail on any of these.

Hot take: the smaller, less-hyped platforms almost always have better engagement ratios than the big names. Less noise.

Also worth knowing about: datelink.online.

I'll give you the honest breakdown since there's a lot of marketing noise around this topic:

• Mobile-first design is now the standard for good platforms
• Video verification before meetups is the single best safety tool
• Paywalls that let you see but not contact are a yellow flag
• Check for recent activity on profiles before investing time
• Report bots aggressively—good platforms act on reports quickly

For what it's worth, I've been using Flurrydate recently and the experience has been noticeably better than the more well-known options. Less fake-feeling, responses actually happen.

Take the above as a starting point, not the final word. Your mileage may vary significantly.

Good timing on this thread—I was just thinking about this last week.

Video verification before meeting anyone in person is non-negotiable at this point. Ten minutes on a live call tells you more than a week of texting.

A few others worth knowing about if you haven't come across them yet: luvdate.site, turndate.site, rendate.site. Each has a different strength so it's worth checking which fits your situation.

That's my take anyway—curious if others have had different results.