Renee
Highly Unethical Company with Poor Customer Service
This company has deceptive sales practices, and is unethical and aggressive. The saleswoman assured me that IJL would have matches for me of a similar education level (graduate school) and income level. When I realized that wasn't true, IJL had a saleswoman from its sister company, Elite Private Search (EPS), call me. That saleswoman told me many lies and convinced me to pay $35,000 to meet men who were better matches for me. One of the lies was that I could get a "full refund" for any dates I chose not to go on, and she repeatedly called the contract "risk free." (See my complaint on the BBB.) The truth is that they never refund a penny once they get it- no matter how unhappy the client is or how poor the matches are. They also never apologize for their mistakes and never redo or refund even terrible dates. First, my matches from both IJL and EPS were poor compared to matches I can easily find for myself on Hinge or Bumble or compared to the matches I had with Tawkify, another dating service. Second, when a client is unhappy with IJL's services, their strategy is DENY ALL RESPONSIBILITY AND BLAME AND PERSONALLY ATTACK THE CLIENT! See for yourself- scroll to negative online reviews on sites such as yelp and read their responses. (On this site they at least say they will reach out, but based on the one star reviews, it looks like they did nothing.) IJL consistently responds to negative reviews in an invalidating, dismissive, and disrespectful manner. If a client said anything nice about a person they were matched with, they argue that this is "proof" that it was a good match. This is not logical- everyone has good qualities. If it was a good match, the client would be writing a positive review! Also, If you are a high earner and you tell them how much money you make, two things may happen. 1. They may charge you more for their service. I went on several dates with IJL over a 10 month period. Some men paid as little as $5k for the year while others were charged $6k for 6 months! 2. They will tell you lies to try to upsell you to their dramatically more expensive package described above. I had a much better experience with TAWKIFY, a matchmaking company that does real matchmaking. (They don't just match to profiles, your matchmaker always does a video call to prescreen anyone she is going to match you with.) With TAWKIFY, once you use half of your matches, you can have a refund on your remaining matches if you like. IJL and EPS offer no such refunds because they know too many people would ask for refunds. Finally, keep in mind that a dating service is no safer than dating online unless the company does background checks, and I don't know of any that do. I was very reluctant to try online dating due to privacy and safety issues, and I had also thought that I would meet better people through a dating service. A poor experience with both IJL and EPS led me to try Hinge, Bumble, and The League. Ironically, 2 of my first 3 EPS dates were in my Hinge feed on the first day! I met men on Bumble and Hinge who are better matches for me- and have better character- than the men I paid thousands of dollars to meet through IJL or EPS. In addition, you can prescreen the men yourself before you meet them by doing a phone call or video chat. So, if you are considering IJL I recommend that you have some professional photos taken, put some effort into a profile and go on Hinge, Bumble, and maybe The League (beware narcissists on this one though!) If you still want a matchmaking service, I highly recommend TAWKIFY. Good Luck!