At first, LoveAt50.co.nz looked promising. The landing page is simple, but it conveys the impression that the platform is serious and trustworthy. There is nothing vulgar about it. People in their 50s, with little experience of dating sites, will certainly think it is legit. However, LoveAt50.co.nz is not what it claims to be. The platform features fake profiles which are managed professional animators. Their mission is to increase the operator’s profits by seducing users and convincing them to shell out a premium membership.
The unscrupulous company behind LoveAt50.co.nz is Alpha Internet Services GmbH, from Innsbruck, in Austria. In previous reviews, we have shared our experiences with this operator who uses the same rip-off on their different websites. Therefore, it was not difficult to find feedback from many former users who complain about a subscription that they could not terminate, and an unresponsive customer service.
Excerpt from the Terms & Conditions (as of 01/09/2023)
The user/member is also aware that LoveAt50 uses so-called animators to motivate users/members to communicate interactively. These are real people. However, the user / member is aware that he cannot meet the animators in real life. […] The user/member is also aware that a contact through the animator in forms of a visit may happen in the first days after registration when the contacts could be low.
The “animator” scam
By accepting the Terms of Service, users comply, and are aware of the profile being moderated by professional animators in the members’ area. In fact, users are not fully aware. We know that very few users read the lengthy Terms of Service Even if they do, they can easily skip the paragraph where the scam is mentioned. Obviously, it is not possible to experience a genuine flirt with these fake profiles, let alone arrange a date in real life.
Subscription rip-off
To send instant messages to other members, users must first subscribe to an automatically renewing premium membership. The duration of this can be selected in advance. The longer the subscription, the lower the monthly price. Nevertheless, even longer subscriptions end up being quite expensive. Moreover, if users miss the cancellation deadline, the subscription is automatically extended by the original term. Consequently, LoveAt50.co.nz users can easily end up in a subscription trap. This can be seen in the many comments online, which report a scam.
