Free SLS member equals scorn?

We have an ad on SLS and while the profile itself generates once-a-blue-moon contacts, we find the event functions useful, though the forum can't hold a candle to the one here. Anyway, we've noticed a general scorn (some bordering on elitist) for unpaid members and/or those without Certs in the forums there equating them with not "real" people or fakes and noticed some choose to block their entire profile existence from them. We signed up free to test the waters there and will likely stay that way. Call us cheap but we do have other financial obligations and based upon the low response and high number of game players (all paid members by the way) so far we can't see how having that paid member badge will increase one and decrease the other especially when those people who might contact us who otherwise would not when we were free would likely not be worth our time for that same reason.

Just curious if there are any other free members here who noticed the same thing or if you are a paid member choose not to contact or deal with free members.

Anyone can be a free member. I could make 5 different fake profile right now all with different ISP's if I wanted to. People are at least show some sort of commitment by being a paid member.

We're paid members. Yes, being paid members lends some credibility and also supports sites. Paid member plus certs by people we know makes it more likely that a couple is "for real". Doesn't mean we ignore free members -- we were free when we started--but does mean a little more skepticism.

Age old saying of you get what you pay for. Fours Company; I agree with you in many respects. But, being free has its challenges.

We agree on the issue of people being easy to fake it by being free and understand paid members not wanting to bother for that reason alone as well as the website needing to support itself. However, we must respectfully disagree on it showing commitment to the LS. The only commitment difference we see is monetary, as we stated all of the gamers, disappearing prior to meeting (or after) couples and drive-bys we've experienced have been from paid members most with several Certs. Only one paid couple who contacted us has proved to be genuine as far as actually meeting and playing, so one can say we've experienced the reverse that paid members are worried about from free members.

As we stated, we cannot upgrade even if we wanted to due to financial obligations and if that makes as freeloaders to some on SLS, so be it. Trust us, we are very committed to the LS and actually meeting people and playing is what makes findings others with both our commitment and compatibility frustrating especially if they don't want to bother just because of our status. Sorry, that we didn't want to sound like we were generalizing about paid members or bashing them and realize there are likely many out there who are genuine, not into jerking us around and willing to contact us, it's just we've yet to encounter them yet.

A free SLS profile with no pictures gets no attention from us...heck even a paid profile with no pics gets no attention. We would not automatically turn down a free profile but are at times more wary of them.

If we were to judge our swinging success (?) based purely on SLS and hooking up through email and profiles, we would be batting a whopping zero. All of our experiences were due to going to parties and clubs. Overall, we meet couples in person at parties and go from there. It's much too hard to go through the thousands of profiles and determine attraction and validity of a couple. With that said, we sometimes do send out a lot of email responses in one sitting (flirting) or look at profiles of couples to see if we can match up the right profile with the right couple(s) that we met the night before. Being a free member limits the number of emails and profile views. In the early stage of swinging, we tried a paid membership for 3 months to try it out. When it became clear to us that we could both handle swinging, we went with the lifetime membership which saves money in the long run and allows us the perks of being a paid member.

As for the elitist/condescending opinion of free members, we are wary when we come upon a free profile, especially when there are no pictures and a dismal profile overall. But, as I stated, we don't go through profiles to email couples out of the blue to hook up--we rely on swing events. Yes, paid members can still mean flakes (and your post actually made me wonder if other couples think we're flakes because we don't schedule 2 on 2 hook-ups) but at least they put some monetary value interest in their "hobby". If we're contacted by a free member couple, they have to really make it up with a fantastically written profile and some clear body pictures (not nude ones).

It might be worthwhile to have folks look at your profile via the Profile Evaluation thread. Sometimes an external look sees things in a profile that the authors don't.

The only reason we have ever considered becoming paid members is to be able to give people certs that want them, but other than that, we have no intention of ever becoming paid members (we are paid members at the club though).

We are paid on SLS but free on AFF. On SLS especially, although we don't consider ourselves elitist, but we have limited funds and tolerance for BS. We have limited funds and even more limited time. Anytime we go out we spend $200-300. This includes dinner, drinks, cover for a party or hotel, and a biggie is the baby-sitter.

Our criteria are paid, certs, and public pics. You can still keep your identity protected but a pic is worth a thousand words. If you have certs and pics, we can ignore the free member status. But all three let's us know that you are real and not likely to waste our time. Again we don't feel that its elitist, just protects us and is a good way to judge if you are real.

A wild guess at the numbers for us would be that about 80% of the free accounts we have dealt with were not serious, were cheater, fakes or flakes. On the other hand only I would flip that and say about 80% of paid accounts we have dealt with were at least serious, though some portion of those have been flakes as well.

So from our perspective, with our limited time to swing, it is better to spend our time with those more likely to be serious. It is simply a numbers game.

We do not ignore free profiles just because they are free, but if I am engaged in a conversation with someone that I know to be real or at least have a good reason to believe them to be, and I get pinged by a free profile, the vast majority of my time is spent talking to the paid account not the free one.

We'll take the other side of this question/debate. When looking through profiles, I'll first eliminate those with Free/no pics/ and skimpy profiles.. Why? well, for one thing, I think that a site that is run well, organized, and maintained, DESERVES THE FINANCIAL support of it's users. Plain and Simple. We don't ever want to be that couple (or person) that shows up at the picnic with an open hand but no picnic basket. As for "we have bills to pay" folks. Duh, doesn't everyone? I mean REALLY? If you're on the site, you're paying, one way or another, the electricity to run your device, the cost of the device, your internet connection (assuming you don't live at Starbucks) . I don't hold it against anyone that is free, but they definitely take a back seat to a PAID membership... and yes, there are flakes, paid or free!

I pay more attention to how active someone is, when did they log in last, do they respond to email.

The lack of a picture, to us, shows a complete lack of courtesy. The "excuse"... "Oh we're high profile and can't afford to be found"... is pure, unadulterated BS!!!! Combine that with a 3 line profile and it's more like a beggar asking for a handout... Those are as easy to ignore as the single males with the title "longhardone" (hope that's not someone actual handle) or equally inane handle.

We have been very very successful finding kindred spirits on here, and locating some fun playmates, much more successful than clubs, house parties or meet and greets. We respond to EVERY email (but quickly write off anyone that doesn't return the favor), show up at every date, on time, and have been stood up.

But my main beef is the FREE members. It's only a couple of bucks in the grand scheme of things, I don't want to be a free loader, especially if we benefit from the service, and I don't care to associate with a free loader... That shows me that if/when we meet, I"M GONNA BE PAYING FOR DRINKS AND DINNER, not that I mind, but it's nice to be treated the same as we offer.

Okay, rant off now.

People above have stated plenty of reasons why many people choose to avoid / ignore free members. I'll admit that we have seen plenty of free members in our own area that have stayed free forever and we never see them anywhere. When you contact them they don't reply. We aren't really sure they exist. Once upon a time, we would host regular M&G dinners and we did invite free members, as well as paid. I will say that the paid members were more likely to respond and to even show up.

We don't necessarily discount free members. However, we also really only use SLS to check out event sign-ups and get an idea of who we might be meeting ahead of time. It sounds like that's your primary use, as well. With that in mind, I don't think that upgrading to paid would really make a big deal for you. If you were using it more to actually make contacts and were trying to initiate 1 on 1 meets then I'd say that it'd be worth upgrading. If we were making an effort to arrange 1 on 1 meets as our primary means of meeting new couples, we might be more likely to pay more attention to free/paid status.

Appreciate all the great points and agree with them. Most of our time on the site is for that very reason to see what events are ongoing and get an idea of those attending and agree one can have much better luck at clubs or house parties. However due to having to work most of the time on days those events are usually held, makes having to rely on meeting 1 on 1 being the only option assuming the low possibility of finding others during the week. So I suppose there will be a point where upgrading or not will have to be the deal-breaker if we want continue in the LS.

Again, we don't wish to give the impression we are attacking paid members or implying any sort of classism. Our impressions were just based upon the comments on the SLS forum and our experiences with those that contacted us and who backed out without a word all who as we stated were paid (sometimes life) members with several Certs. So while that may have made them more "real" to some people and shows they had the respect of some members, it no less negates they choose to portray themselves to us as douche-nozzles. The LS can be as frustrating as fun and guess everyone here has experienced it at one time or another.

Again, we want to thank all who responded to our post so far and for your honest and valid opinions. In our short time here we have found this a great place with equally great people.

I think that a site that is run well, organized, and maintained, DESERVES THE FINANCIAL support of it's users. Plain and Simple.

Wow, this really hit home. You are so right, so I just made a donation to swingersboard.com.

The lack of a picture, to us, shows a complete lack of courtesy. The "excuse"... "Oh we're high profile and can't afford to be found"... is pure, unadulterated BS!!!!

I'm sure it is BS for some, but not all. When we were new, the first couple we met (at a club), was like that. One of them was a civilian employee of the military with a big time security clearance. They didn't tell us about that for months. They had to quit attending the upscale club in our area when the owner (who I loathe) foolishly started scanning everyone's drivers license every time you entered the club. When you have a security clearance, you can't have your license pinging the State database from a sex club.

like all things in swinging its always personal choice how one chooses to play with others or present themselves online.I just like to communicate that some methods of operation can limit your opportunities.

I am a salesman. Always have been always will be. I do not understand why people disfavor free advertising. We have a paid profile on AFF and have had great luck there. We have a free profile on sls and just refer potential suitors there. What could be better than hooking up with out having to pay the a fee for a web site. Hell If we became serous about swinging I think we could find a new couple every other week. Denver is a big place. Craigslist here works well too... Fakes and cheaters are part of the game. Don't hate the game... play better game dammit. Now we play about once a month... And that seems to be enough for us. Stay positive and keep you're eye on the prize. We did get burned a while ago on a couple we met on AFF. They were not truthful about their having HSV. They waited till the second date and said... what do you think about herpes... We said. We don't have it. Why do you ask... They replied cause we have it... If they only had told us from the beginning I would have NOT pursued the relationship. We are disease free and want to stay that why. It says so in our profile and also states we expect the same... DUH>>>

On the other hand we have met a very nice couple off of Craigslist (free by the way) and we will be visiting them this weekend.

In conclusion. Don't throw away chances just because they are free and you have to work at them a little harder. Hell the chase if almost the funnest part. Yes I said funnest.

In conclusion. Don't throw away chances just because they are free and you have to work at them a little harder. Hell the chase if almost the funnest part. Yes I said funnest.

Babysitter in our area, $10 an hour, free weekend night with babysitter, once a month tops, price of finding out the other couple has misrepresented themselves? About $60 dollars.

So yeah, the chase is not our fun part.

Chicup said:

Babysitter in our area, $10 an hour, free weekend night with babysitter, once a month tops, price of finding out the other couple has misrepresented themselves? About $60 dollars.

 

So yeah, the chase is not our fun part.

Add to that 150 to 300 with a paid membership and you could be out 360... Plus gas plus diner. How far does Grammy live from you. LOL Good luck Chicup. To bad you did not live closer. We could leave the kids at your house and split the sitter fees... Or maybe we should swing with younger couples and ask them if they have a younger sibling that could watch the kids while we play... lOl Or we never mind that.

We are Lifetime Members on SLS. I can tell you that most people like us that get contacted by free members find that 9/10 times they are fakes. Meaning that it's a single guy posing as couple.

We are Lifetime Members on SLS. I can tell you that most people like us that get contacted by free members find that 9/10 times they are fakes. Meaning that it's a single guy posing as couple.

We've only had this happen once - confirmed. Any other time that it could have been possible, I get tired of the person before meeting/any other way of truly digging out a fake happens.

Have I mentioned that I am not a fan of interacting with people online?

Why? well, for one thing, I think that a site that is run well, organized, and maintained, DESERVES THE FINANCIAL support of it's users.

While that may be generally true, it's not true of SLS. We were free members there for like 10 years, met some folks, all was good. Then I thought I should really pay up and bought the lifetime membership. They immediately took our profile "offline" because our profile wasn't swingery enough. So we redid it and still no dice. Crazy. So I asked for a refund and they said no. I wish I had never paid them.

So I read in someones profile the other day something that I thought was pretty funny. I pasted it below:

Free members asking for a response, separately emailed pics because you only get 5 emails a day and can't upload or view pictures, not sure/just trying this out, etc: Tough love, cheapskates. A one month membership on SLS is $14.95. If you can't afford that - then you simply can't afford us. SHE only drinks top shelf, and 2 Crown & Diets at our local swing club is $16.

So I read in someones profile the other day something that I thought was pretty funny. I pasted it below:

 

Free members asking for a response, separately emailed pics because you only get 5 emails a day and can't upload or view pictures, not sure/just trying this out, etc: Tough love, cheapskates. A one month membership on SLS is $14.95. If you can't afford that - then you simply can't afford us. SHE only drinks top shelf, and 2 Crown & Diets at our local swing club is $16.

I generally don't care for negatives in a profile.

That one is worth an exception though. Blunt, but it still hit me as funny.

I'm surprised about a swing club in the US with a liquor license myself. You don't ID swingers by rings, or rocks, or flags, but by names on bottles in their house

I have to imagine they are talking about off premise swing clubs with liquor licenses, there are ton's of those around.

You don't ID swingers by rings, or rocks, or flags, but by names on bottles in their house

Very funny.