http://www.timesunion.com

Quoted Text

The bill arrives for Just Lunch
State levies $47,000 fine, says dating service overcharged customers  
  First published: Saturday, July 7, 2007

JORDAN CARLEO-EVANGELISTStaff writer
ALBANY -- Thou shalt not overcharge the lovelorn.

  
An international dating firm with a franchise in Albany has agreed to pay the state $47,000 in fines and other fees for violating little-known laws that cap how much so-called social referral services can charge their customers.

Three New York franchises of It's Just Lunch, the matchmaking service that bills itself as the low-key romantic solution for busy, lovelorn professionals, must also pay the state $7,000 each and offer some customers three free dates -- or referrals -- to make restitution.

Some 200 Albany-area customers could be affected, said Lee Park, a spokesman for state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, whose office reached the settlement with the California-based company.

Cuomo's office intervened after receiving a complaint from one of the company's Buffalo-area competitors, which has since gone out of business, Park said.

Featured everywhere from "Oprah" to The Wall Street Journal to this newspaper, the company and its upbeat commercials pitch an easy, low-stress way to meet Mr. or Ms. Right.

But the company intentionally circumvented state law, according to Cuomo's office, by having some customers sign two six-month contracts that together exceeded the $1,000 yearly cap outlined in the Dating Service Consumer Bill of Rights.

The first contract was typically for $1,000, the second for $500 -- which could create the illusion of a bargain but in reality was 50 percent more than anyone ought to have paid. The contracts were signed at the same time, officials said.

Messages left at the company's Palm Desert, Calif., headquarters and the Albany franchise office were not immediately returned Friday afternoon. Also named in the settlement are franchises in New York City and Williamsville, a Buffalo suburb, according to Cuomo's office.

Officials say the company's contracts also violated state law in other ways, such as banning customers from suing it and failing to offer other required protections.

Among the other protections in the bill of rights are a guarantee of a minimum number of referrals per month for any contract worth more than $25 and an explicit limit to how far the consumer will travel for a date.

The New York franchises will owe three free referrals to any clients who overpaid and "simultaneously signed two contracts on or after January 1, 2006."

State laws governing dating services go back at least to the early 1970s and were devised, in part, to protect lonesome New Yorkers from contracts requiring hefty up-front payments.

Park said It's Just Lunch has also agreed to ensure future contracts adhere to state laws. On its Web site, the company boasts of more than 100 locations on several continents. Carleo-Evangelist can be reached at 454-5445 or by e-mail at jcarleo-evangelist@timesunion.com.

Dating use to be just a natural fun thing back in my day. Today, it seems, that they have made a business out of it and now the state government has to regulate it. To regulate dating sounds so strange to me. I don't know how people can't find other people to date and that they have to pay a lot of money just to meet someone. And it seems to me that folks want to short cut the process of finding out about another person. That use to be the fun of it. I guess this is fun for the folks today.

Look at it this way.  Before, the dating company used to want to get these people together to help them out and to make a bit of money.  They did their best to match them up appropriately, as word of mouth would have been a great way to get some free advertisement, so they did the best job possible.  Now, if each person has to get 3 "free" dates, then how much do you think that the company's going to be looking into who they have these dates with?  I guess if you're under this contract, it's going to be "Person from Column A, here's Person from Column B."  They do this 3 times and sorry, it didn't work out, but at least we gave you the three dates we were ordered to.  Oh well, too bad, so sad.

Kinda like 'mail order dating'! MIght as well resort to cloning...then perhaps you could find the perfect mate! Pathetic!!!

Quoted from bumblethru

Kinda like 'mail order dating'! MIght as well resort to cloning...then perhaps you could find the perfect mate! Pathetic!!!

Aint that the truth....the narcisist that we are.......  

The country is in a big hurry going nowhere that they can't tack the time to find a good, decent, compatible person for themselves so they want someone else to find one for them.

And the government just keeps on dishing out and the people just keep on eating it up. Do they really think they can make this a perfect world? Other Empires have tried and those Empires fell!

The truth is...there is good and evil, black and white, beautiful and not so beautiful, sinful and Godly, healthy and unhealthy, rich and not so rich....well you get the picture here....THIS IS LIFE FOLKS!

Now pull yourselves up by the boot straps and deal with it!

Quoted Text

"there is in all things a pattern that is part of our universe. It has symmetry, elegance, and grace---those qualities you find always in that which the true artist captures. you can find it in the turning of the seasons, in the way sand trails along a ridge, in the branch clusters of the creosote bush or the pattern of its leaves. We try to copy these patterns in our lives and our society, seeking the rhythms, the dances, the forms that comfort. Yet, it is possible to see peril in the finding of ultimate perfection. It is clear that the ultimate pattern contains its own fixity. In such perfection, all things move toward death."

Frank Herbert