New Jersey Woman Sues Her Matchmaker After Being Sent on a Really Bad, Really Expensive Date

Everyone dreams of falling in love, and the first step in that process is usually going out on a date. What happens when your matchmaker allegedly fails?

Everyone dreams of falling in love, and the first step in that process is usually going out on a date. For some people, finding a date is almost as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. But for others, finding a date is very, very hard work.

The poor souls who fall into the latter category are the people who tend to frequent the self-help section at Barnes & Noble — that’s where pick-up artistry handbooks are shelved, right? These are the people who are willing to hand thousands of dollars to matchmakers like Patti Stanger in the hopes of going on a single date.

But try as they might, sometimes matchmakers fail. In fact, sometimes matchmakers fail because they allegedly charge exorbitant prices to send their clients on dates with convicted criminals. In times like this, these broken hearts don’t go home; instead, they go to court….

Apparently Jeanne McCarthy, a New Jersey resident, made arrangements to join Two of Us, a matchmaking service, because she had learned through advertising that the company screened all of its members and performed criminal background checks. According to her complaint, that didn’t exactly work out so well.

Courthouse News Service has the scoop on this apparent horror story from the Garden State:

A woman who paid $7,000 to a matchmaking service wants her money back, claiming in court that it gave her only two “matches” in five months, and the only date she got was with “a man with 3 drunk driving convictions and [an] outstanding criminal warrant.”

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After being set up with a repeat drunk driver with an outstanding warrant, McCarthy alleges that Two for Us didn’t even bother to screen its applicants. From the complaint:

Yeah, we can see why the plaintiff here was pissed: she paid $7K to go on a date with a guy who very well might have to research 12-step programs in the near future. But then again, what did McCarthy expect? If you’re going to put your love life into someone else’s hands, you need to do some dirty work, and it appears that she didn’t do any at all. (To her credit, McCarthy’s no spring chicken — she’s a 64-year-old woman who’s out on the prowl, and she probably doesn’t even understand how to work a computer.)

But for the rest of us, if you fire up the Google machine, you can see that the first hit for “Two of Us Matchmaking Reviews” is a site that lists 85 complaints and reviews; the second hit alleges “fraud and cheating” on the part of this dating service. This poor old lady probably gave up a good portion of her retirement fund to pay into what’s alleged to be a scam.

Perhaps this matchmaking company ought to research a new slogan — one that’s more appropriate in light of McCarthy’s recent filing. Two of Us: because two is always better than one… especially when you need someone to pick you up from the local drunk tank.

McCarthy v. PMM Inc. d/b/a Two of Us Complaint [New Jersey Superior Court, Mercer County]
A Really Bad, Really Expensive Date [Courthouse News Service]

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