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http://f**kbuddies.mydates.com This link won't work because I've replaced the u and c with
aster...star thingies, so you'll have to type it in if you're game enough to go there. I didn't go looking for this site
but came across it by accident....honest, and only joined for research purposes! For the purpose of this review I'll call
the site 'bonk buddies'. On the home page it says, Find a 'bonk' tonight, and as the name suggests, it's a site for people
seeking sexual meetings. Although it's an international site (I think it's UK based) you can select NZ or any other country
and it will only show search results from the country you select. Being a hetrosexual male, I only searched for
women in NZ and it gave me 36 results (and a total of 352 females online now) but I presume if one entered
female seeking males, it would produce thousands. It's quick to join (compared to many other sites) and is easy to navigate.
It isn't really my cup of tea, but if you're looking for one on one sexual meetings, couples, sex chat etc, then this
is the site for you.
Free to join BUT, it doesn't
say if there's any cost to chat or reply, so if and when I get a message, I'll let you know of any costs.
http://join.nzfriendfinder.com/ This is a US site with a NZ division. They say they have
4977 NZ members and it's quick and simple to join. A very broad search for women gave me a reasonable number of profiles
but there was only one gold member and only a handful of silver members. All the rest were standard (free) members which
is probably due to the fairly high cost of membership. Only about 20 were last online within a week, and the rest were last
online from a month or more ago. Gold and Silver members
have complete access to the site and all members. Standard-level (i.e. non-paying) members are limited in their ability to
initiate contact, read full profiles, or view full-size pictures. Get even more interest by allowing standard members to view
your profile and send you emails. Without this option, Standard members are limited in their ability to view your profile
or contact you.
Gold Membership:
3 months
Extra 1 month
FREE for Gold!
$59.94 USD / 85.55 NZD Save 57%!
Renew at $17.94 USD / 25.61 NZD per month
$39.94
USD / 57.01 NZD Save 42%!
Renew at $18.94 USD / 27.03 NZD per month
Silver membership:
1 month
$34.94 USD / 49.87 NZD
Renew at $27.94
USD / 39.88 NZD per month
$22.94 USD / 32.74 NZD
Renew at $20.94 USD / 29.89 NZD per month
http://www.tryst.co.nz is one I came across by accident and appears to be a genuine
NZ based site. I'm still evaluating this one but I'll give you what I've got so far. The join up process is about average
(20 to 30 minutes inc uploading a pic, of which they allow you to have up to 5) and although there appears to be a fair number
of members (they say thousands of Kiwi's), most don't display a photo on their profiles. There's a fair few with "Meet for
sex (one nighter)" which is an option choice when joining. It's nicely laid out, easy to navigate and has chat, which was
empty for the hour I was logged on having a look around. There's messageboard/discussion forums (the last post to it was 18
hours prior to when I was logged on), internal email, from which you can send a pic from your hard drive so are not limited
to the pics you have on your profile. There's even a function to send SMS txt messages to other members (apparently it
costs 99c to send a txt but free to receive) or to recieve a txt alert when a contact logs in. I was able to use all
the features and with no mention of paid upgrades, I presume it's all Free.
Update: This site doesn't appear to
be used as much as it sould be and I don't know why, because it's quite good. As I said earlier, I only came across it by
accident so maybe it needs promoting more. Go on, join this one.
http://www.meetme.co.nz is supposedly a new NZ dating site and until I
can find out for sure, and for the purpose of this initial review, we'll presume it is. You can't have a look around until
you register and there's no mention of cost either, even after registering. They do however offer 3 months paid membership for those who join before 10 Dec 2005, so I presume
the cost will appear after then. Registration is quick and easy but they do require a name, address
and phone number on their registration application. Unless they send a validation number by snail mail to verify your details,
I can't see the point in asking for an address. Registration is not automated like most dating sites and you'll
get this message when you confirm your registration: "Your profile has been sent to an administrator to be reviewed
and will be activated within 24 hours."
I'll let you know more about this one when I'm "approved."
Update: I was "approved" within a few minutes. At 2:30
on a week day afternoon, there were only 4 males and 2 females showing as online now, but to be fair, if as they say it's
a new site then we'd expect membership to grow if the site owners do their job properly, plus don't price themselves out of
a very competitive market. There's no chat room or messageboard forums but there is internal email. They do however welcome
suggestions to improve the site. In a nutshell? Yes, join this site along with others, at least until (or if) they start charging.
Feedback from members of this site is welcome.
click here to email me. Feedback from a male member:"I joined this site 6 days ago and have only recieved 4 emails,
and they were all from Russian women."
http://www.personalstuff.co.nz is a division of TradeMe and the same as findsomeone.
It has a large membership with lots of NZ profiles, but you can't have a looksie around the profiles until you go through
the fairly lengthy registration process. You can speed up the registration by skipping a lot of the profile criteria but what
would be the use for one wanting to meet others? Although there is a free membership level, the chat room, messageboard forums
or even email can't be used unless you upgrade to gold status. This can be quite annoying as they don't mention the cost
of upgrading until after you've registered. Another annoying 'feature' of this site is pretty much everything has to
be approved before it's published, and that includes postings to the messageboards, your photos, and even info posted on your
profile. Although I can understand them wanting to keep the site content nice and tidy, the instant nature of internet dating
is lacking on this site. The main reason though is so you don't post any contact info like email addys and therefore
be able to bypass paying to chat to others. Layout is quite good but navigation could be a bit clearer. Things like chat
and messageboards have no direct links but come under the 'community' link. The free membership is quite useless so be prepared
to pay to use this dating site. Update: I've recieved a few messages through this site (you get
an email telling you there is a new message) and I got it wrong when I said the email can't be used unless you're a paid
member. To clarify any confusion, you can reply to messages but not initiate any.
$19.95 a month, $15.95 a month
if paid 3 months in advance, or $14.95 a month for 6 months.
http://www.sparkleroad.co.nz is another one that advertises join for free but doesn't
mention the cost until after you've registered. There's a decent sized NZ membership and although you can send 'smiles' to
other members, you can't send a message unless you're a paid member. The chat room wasn't working last time I visited
but the messageboards were. Posts to the boards queue pending authorisation, presumably by a moderator. I haven't had much
experience with this site yet so I'll update this review when I get more info. Feedback from members would be welcome.
Click here to email me. Update: I've been a member of this site for two weeks now and I've
only received 7 messages (remember non paying members can't initiate first contact but can reply) and ALL are from gorgeous
Russian women, so guys take from that what you will. Update: Make that 9 Russians
and an African now. Update 30 Jan 2006: I like this site except for admin
closely monitoring content on profiles and messageboards to make sure no contact details get posted for free so therefore
bypassing the pay to use policy. Another short coming of this site is not only do comments on messageboards need approval,
but it takes far too long for approval.
1 month $NZ19.95, 3 months $NZ39.95,
6 months $NZ59.95 and is expensive compared to other NZ sites.
http://www.nzpersonals.co.nz is the 'adult' sister site to the no sleaze http://www.datemate.co.nz nzpersonals has an ok layout and the navigation is fine but could be a bit more user friendly for
newbies. It has all the usual features we've come to expect from dating sites as more and more competition appears. Many of
the profiles contain sexually explicit photos, so if you're female expect a fair amount of sexually themed messages. If you're
a male, unfortunately you won't get many as the women say they get more than they can handle so don't need to message the
men. Non paying members can only send one message a day to other non paying members but 10 to paid up members. Update: A
non paying member told me she could send up to 10 messages a day, and my enquiries revealed that women are allowed more free messages per day - because they are least likely to pay a subscription
fee. A bar near to me was offering half price drinks to women only and was told to cease the practise,
so make of it what you will.
There is a free trial period for a week and paid membership is reasonable at $20 for 3 months,
$35 for 6 months and $50 for a year.
http://www.datemate.co.nz is the sister site to the one reviewed above. The layout and functions are the same as nzpersonals but they have a policy
of no explicit photos or content. Having clicked on 'who's online' about a dozen times at varying times of the day and evening,
the most I've seen is 5, but there's often just me as showing online. If they have thousands of members as they say, where
are they?
When I tried to check on any costs, the message was "under construction"
so I presume they haven't decided if to or how much to charge. Join this one if you like but don't expect too much
from it at this stage anyway, and I certainly wouldn't pay to use this site unless there were a lot more members showing oline.
http://www.nzdatingzone.com I just joined this one today so my review is only on what I've got so far. It's an international site with many non NZ members. Basic
registration is quick as you don't have to add all your 'about me' info before getting access to the site, and because of
this most don't bother to do so. The site layout and navigation is pretty standard and no better or worse than most other
sites. Free membership allows use of most of the site features but the forums, instant messaging, private photo albums and
buddy/ban/hot list feature requires paid (silver) membership. Event management requires gold membership. Silver
membership is cheap at $4.95 a year and gold is $12.95 a year, BUT it's US dollars and they don't tell you
this until you actually get to the credit card payment page. There's nothing illegal in this but in my opinion it is
an attempt to hide the true cost until you've made up your mind to pay, possibly hoping you won't notice?
Admin say payment is in US dollars because it's an international site. Ok, fair enough, but why the
NZ in the domain name if it isn't targeting New Zealanders? If admin wants to email me with an explaination,
I'll be happy to publish it here.
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