Since 1997, Flirt.com has worked with 70 million users, claiming to take them places where their wingmen or own finesse has failed. By helping you find common interests with potential dates and flings, the site gives you the building blocks to get talking, because as they say, “It all starts with flirting.” Their simple name entices you with visions of ready and cute singles eager to get to know you intimately right in your own town. But does this site really help you with your game, or is it all talk and no action?

First Glance
When you first sign up, you’re invited to choose which of two genders you’re attracted to. There’s no trans* option, couples option, or bisexual option, so from the get-go you’re boxed in for what looks like a largely hetero and vanilla hookup site. Whatever you choose, make sure you pick the right one when you sign up, because once you’re a member, there’s no changing who you’re attracted to, leaving bi babes in the dust.

After registering, creating your profile is straightforward and user-friendly. You can put as much (or as little) detail into this section as you’d like, and pick any picture you think will draw those honeys in. As soon as you finish your profile, you’re pinged by a message from the site admin with lots of “special offers” to keep you hooked. From there, you’re all signed up and ready to start meeting the eligible bachelors and bachelorettes in your city.

The Dating Pool
From the home screen, Flirt.com promises a wealth of single people right for you. You can filter them by popularity and recent activity. However, you’ll quickly realize that only the first forty-five people or so are available for free, making it a little hard to judge the types of people this site draws in.

If you’re looking for men, though, the first few rows of eligible bachelors makes one thing is clear: you’d better like men who frown. Out of the available matches in the Bay Area, only two had something close to a smile in their profile picture. Most photos were grainy, and there wasn’t much to go on that suggested the matches there would be fun to spend time with.

Maybe the straight men look so down in the dumps because the available women, although more friendly and bubbly-looking, all come with a huge asterisk. The majority of profiles looked fake. As soon as I signed up, women messaged me saying I was “interesting” even though my profile and photo gallery were entirely blank. Most of the women were bots at best, or swindlers at worst, and it was hard to know if there were any real and eligible local women looking to meet.

Unique Perks
In spite of these red flags, Flirt.com does have a few things that make it different from other browser-based dating and hookup sites. You can do the popular Tinder-style swiping from your desktop, so you can browse without having to read their whole profile (or pay for it).

You are allowed to send five free messages daily, and participate in chatrooms like “Naughty but Nice” and “Kink Friendly,” so you can connect to more scintillating content with (potentially) real people in your area.

On top of it all, you can send FlirtCasts. These public messages are sent to multiple active users in the area at once, testing the waters to see who’s interested in a date.

The catch
Frankly, everything about Flirt.com screams “scam.” For offering features that virtually every other dating website offers – and not with any grand improvements – Flirt.com is a money drain that seems to target men over 35 who may be less than tech-savvy.

This website reads like a bad and expensive version of Tinder, and the problems don’t end there. Many men have reported being scammed after signing up. They receive dozens of messages from women, but can’t access them all unless they pay. Once handing their credit card information over to Flirt.com, the river of messages dries up. That’s because most of the messages are from bots, there to stress new users out until they buy credits, and the site then deletes unseen messages after twenty-four hours, giving users little time to consider whether they actually want to pay for the site at all.

And remember that site admin who messages you at the beginning? Well, it keeps coming, promising a “special discount” for access to features – which, if you’d like to use this site, you really need. Only a user’s initial photo, tagline, and name are visible for free. Their bio, interests, and other information all require a membership. The special discount they offer is 30% off of their special prices, but once that discount ends, you’ll be paying...

$1.50/day (or $4.50) for a Three Day Trial
$2.14/day (or ~$64.20) for one month
$0.77/day (or ~$69.30) for three months
$0.62/day (or ~$111.60) for six months
And if you’re still thinking a three-day trial looks harmless, think again. The fine print reads that your three day trial “automatically converts” into a monthly membership, meaning that your $4.50 has just become a recurring $64 a month. To make things worse, Flirt.com makes it very difficult for you to navigate cancellation. Many men report having to go as far as blocking Flirt.com from their cards in order to stop the payments.

Conclusion
User beware! Flirt.com is one site you should stay very far away from. Although it may have started out as a legit dating and hookup site in the ‘90s, it’s devolved into a scam to steal money from men looking for lovin’. There are much better places to find a date, and you don’t need to drain your wallet to get there. I'm giving Flirt.com 1/5 stars.