Step 7: Senior dating services should offer you a secured environment.
Since to become a member you need to:
- Give away personal information
- Give away your credit information
It is more than necessary to make sure you are dealing with a professional senior dating services agency. Take all the time you need to read the terms of agreement when you complete a process of registration. Make sure the agency will protect your privacy and will not communicate your personal information to other parties.
Do not hesitate to contact the agency by e-mail or by phone to get more information if the one on the site is not clear enough. Do not give away your credit information easily. In all cases, most banks or credit companies would refund you if your credit is misused by the senior dating services agency (check with your financial institution).
Remember to visit more than one or two senior dating services agencies before you choose one. It will take you some time to find and choose the right one but in the end it will save you both time and money.
Senior dating services should be safe.
Another important aspect related to security in using senior dating services is often forgotten by users and by the dating sites themselves. It has to do with the security risk of encountering individuals that you know nothing about besides what they want to tell you. In one word "strangers". How do you know if you can trust another member of a senior dating services site enough to eventually share personal information (phone numbers, addresses, etc) with him/her or even meet the member face to face? This is, to our opinion, one of the primary risks you face using senior dating services, as good of a site it may be. It has also been one of the top issues of many senior dating services sites wanting to give the best secured environment there is for you to find friends or love. There is unfortunately no magic solution to this problem. To our knowledge no senior dating services have a perfect record on this matter.
Senior dating services should provide you privacy.
Senior dating services must always try to reach a compromise between security and the respect of users' privacy. Some of these senior dating services may wish they could have complete background check of every member, but they can't, for obvious reasons. And even if they could use background checks, they can not even properly make sure that the information given to them by members is real or fictive. Someone, with bad intentions, could easily make up an identity (false or borrowed names and addresses) while completing the registration process.
Going through basic verification of personal information like names and addresses or even having a phone conversation with new members before they get approved would be a lengthy and very expensive process for a senior dating services agency that would guaranty you a high increase in membership fees. You can have a look at Executiveseniordating.com which is by far the most secure senior dating services site we know on the web. They do have more expensive membership fees than average. So the bottom line is that, on most senior dating services sites, you never know for sure who you are dealing with.
This is also true for members posting pictures of themselves on their online accounts. Though it's a great feature, it does not guaranty you security of one's identity. It is fairly easy for someone to find and borrow pictures from someone else and use it as his/hers. One thing you can do to prevent that when you are in touch with someone through a senior dating site is to ask for more pictures. Although it is not impossible, it would be much harder for someone to find different pictures of the same person he is not. When you get closer to a member, you can ask to see family pictures or vacation pictures of the member. Any sorts of pictures that show the member in his/hers day to day life is a good indicator of the veracity of the pictures.
Before making the decision to meet face to face with a member of a senior dating services agency, you can also make a little background check yourself. Do not be afraid to ask for a phone number and an address and then to verify the information. You would then know where the member lives (what kind neighbourhoods he/she lives in). If after all that you still feel safe about meeting with the member make sure to choose a public place for the date, like a restaurant. This way you put all the chances on your side of having a nice first date with the other member. If you can even ask a friend to accompany you, it's even better. The friend does not have to stay right by your side throughout the date, but could stay close just in case. The bottom line remains your own good judgement and your vigilance.