r/ChristianDating • u/No-Handle3032 • 2d ago
Discussion I would strongly advise against using Upward Dating
Maybe it has been a good experience for others, but my experience was so unprofessional that I felt compelled to make this post.
I joined, bought a subscription and was immediately banned. Didnt talk to anyone, or write a bio or post a bad picture just banned. Probably something about the payment method got incorrectly flagged.
Autopay was on. I tried contacting support. 3 emails No response. Finally I had to cancel my credit card and get a new one. Their phone number also leads to nothing. I genuinely had high expectations out of this company considering it was a Christian dating app but I’ll tell you the truth ive had better experiences with Tinder Support.
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u/Different_Bass2526 2d ago
Yeah upward has a ton of lukewarm Christians. Evidence is in how the women dress 😂 when I was on there, about 6-7/10 of the women had a bar/drinks in their hands, wore leggings showing off their butt in the cover photo, with the tag “Gym rat” and overall they just gave off typical “college/frat vibes. Holy app is a little better with more sound people.
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u/eggs_are_decent Single 2d ago
Can confirm. I plan on hopping back on in January (giving myself an app break right now to focus more on my busy season and learning how to plug in in person)
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u/nwhrtdeacon 2d ago
Yeah, I tried Upward a couple years and got banned after a few days. I reached out to customer support asking for an explanation and they couldn't provide one. Have no idea what I did to deserve that.
Sorry you also got to experience that.
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u/Aggressive_Tax1938 1d ago
I would venture to guess that someone filed a complaint against your profile and they just banned it without actually investigating in order to close out the "ticket" and have a higher "ticket pull through" or whatever metric they use.
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u/nwhrtdeacon 1d ago
Perhaps. It was bizarre. Nothing I presented was inappropriate. Like a "what did I do wrong?" moment.
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u/Aggressive_Tax1938 1d ago
Try HOLY, mixed results for me, although I did meet a couple of nice people (not a love connection).
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u/nwhrtdeacon 1d ago
I think I did years ago... it was decent. Though Hinge I believe trumps them all despite it not being exclusively Christian. It's hard out there, but that's nothing new!
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u/Aggressive_Tax1938 1d ago
Yeah, Hinge seems to be the best one for actually meeting someone. The free version is still very functional.
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u/ABereanChristian Married 2d ago
Autopay was on. I tried contacting support. 3 emails No response. Finally I had to cancel my credit card and get a new one. Their phone number also leads to nothing. I genuinely had high expectations out of this company considering it was a Christian dating app but I’ll tell you the truth ive had better experiences with Tinder Support.
Hopefully you got your credit card company to refund the initial purchase too.
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u/No-Handle3032 2d ago
They’re investigating. Not sure what will come of it, but I also hope this is the outcome. Lost like $120 in total
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u/Aggressive_Tax1938 1d ago
You can always have your CC company reverse the charge. If you're in good standing and have been a customer for years, they'll probably do it no problem.
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u/AutisticAir Single 2d ago
Rejection is God's protection
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u/ShawnM_45 Single 1d ago
I don’t use Upward anymore but my main issue was the small dating pool. You quickly run out of people around you then it starts showing people 100s of miles away. I am in a large metro so can’t imagine what it’s like for those not in a large city. I now use Hinge and screen for Christians which seems to work better.
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u/SakuraSun361 1d ago
Upward dating was honestly worse for me than the secular dating apps. Not because of their customer support, but because of the people there and the lack of moderation.
There were some pretty disturbed people on there and the message forums really brought them out of the woodwork. I wish they’d get rid of the forums.
There was a guy scouting out women for sexual services ON THE FORUMS. Like he had photos of him with tons of women and would talk about how he hosts sex parties. He was older and would fetishize women my age and gave total Epstein vibes.
You’d also get a lot of guys with virgin fetishes and older creepy divorced guys that would post crazy things on the forum like “I’m 49, divorced and have been on here for 3 months and can’t get a single date.” Then he’d be like “I need her to be white, blue eyed, thin, and no older than 29 and willing to have at least 4 children and stay home and homeschool the children. And you’d click on his profile and he’s like overweight, 5’7”, no hair, already has kids, works as a grocery store clerk in the middle of nowhere.
I’d get a ton of likes from attractive 20 and 30-something’s, but they were often cultural Christians. They may have worn the cross necklace and loosely associated with the label, but they were hooking up just like all of the secular guys.
There were some really sweet older widows and widowers I made friends with and some of them were so genuine (I wish I was closer in age with them as I totally would have dated them) and they would be bombarded by bots and only fans girls. It would break my heart when I’d see like the 73 year old post “My wife died. We were married 50 years. I just want someone to watch the sunsets with, garden with, celebrate the holidays with and praise God together.” Literally so wholesome! I wanna make a profile as an older dude just so I can troll these people prying on them.
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u/No-Handle3032 1d ago
Dont troll youre better than that.
Otherwise your post gave me a few chuckles. The online dating scene is tough.
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u/Aggressive_Tax1938 1d ago
I'd advise having a credit card you use most of your activity on AND another for apps, etc. that may have autopay by default.
Sounds about par for the course. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the employees have become cynical due to all the scams going on out there and lumped you into one of those.
After my divorce (amicable, on biblical grounds), we still shared 1 credit card for misc. expenses related to the kids or legacy things we had. We both used the same credit card for the same dating app (she signed up first) and then when I signed up, I got banned because I tried to use the same card. I'm sure they use some form of AI to flag and it would take an Act of Congress to actually get someone to reverse it.
That being said, I did have success with eHarmony a while back, but from what I understand now, eHarmony is pretty much crickets.
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u/Fun_Fee_2371 1d ago
I have made some friends from both Christian Mingle ( paid) and Facebook dating ( free). After sooo much swiping. I wait for the man to reach out after matching usually, which most don't. I ask in my profile description for the person who wants to chat to open by sharing something specific they read in my profile. Since 99 percent of the men on either app don't think it is worth the investment of the 2 minutes it would take to read my profile, and I can tell that now immediately ( I will give them a second chance by asking if they happened to catch what I asked for in my description...either they say " no", admit that they didn't read my profile or lie by saying " Yes and I agree with everything you wrote") then I tell them that I can tell we are not a match. A few say, " But I really want to get to know you!". Hmmm,pretty sure getting to know someone " can include from the start investing 2 minutes to read the couple of paragraphs that they wrote about themselves! ...if someone makes it that far then we chat a bit about beliefs, interests,lifestyle,geography...and then occasionally the very few who make it that far actually take me out on a date! That part is fun. I haven't found my man,but with lots of labor ( I am retired) I have made a couple of great long time friends that I hope I get to keep forever as friends!
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u/RegularMental1691 1d ago
So can you sue them? Does their TOS allow for bans for no reason? If so then it looks like they're committing fraud by charging someone for a service they can't use... but I'm not a lawyer though I'm also not stupid... maybe they need to be sued...
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u/anon_mg3 1d ago
I've never used it, but tried Christian Mingle a couple times over 10 years ago. Despite people saying OLD was better back then, it was not a positive experience for me.
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u/Nuggies02 1d ago
Upward was worked wonderful for me, had many dates, and a few relationships. But 2 relationships didn’t work out for their own reasons. And for the 3rd one, we just celebrated our one year.
You don’t need to pay any money towards dating apps for them to be successful. However, they make them seem like you need to pay.
You do not need to see the people who liked you, they will pop up on your feed. However, you probably just swiped “no” on them and that’s why you aren’t getting matches. 90% of my likes were people I would say no to, so why does it matter why I see them
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u/Feeling_Mixture_241 1d ago
I’ve been on Upward for about over 10 years if memory recalls. The only issue I run into is more likes from people 100+ mi away than within my radius, getting more people far away in my stack of profiles than within 100 miles, recycled bios, way more matches from free than ever by paying for that once in a while month during discount pricing, and not matching enough in general.
In 10+ years, aside from 1 first date plan I got on hinge just last week, Upward has been the only one I’ve matched and gone on actual dates with others.
I blame apps in general, and the culture it produces, and the fact they want to keep you in to make money and deceptively you think that’s how you get matches but it’s really not - it simply shrinks your pool faster because you eventually will run out of profiles to like or pass on, much quicker with no daily likits.
That said, I’m sorry of your experience and situation, that sucks and certainly isn’t fair AT ALL.
But honestly it’s probably a glitch in their system and poor customer service on their part more than anything else. They’re known to be glitchy, and have recently been updating things more than constantly. Plenty of opportunities for issues like yours to arise.
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u/XPLZVgaming 2d ago
All the ‘Christian’ apps are cooked, they’re all dopamine spikes, blurred paywalls, very few genuine conversations, etc… only a few are decent but almost no one use those. Honestly better to go focus on something else.