Its been a while since I left Ideal and I've had a lot of time to reflect on the process as a whole and this is what you need to be aware of if you choose to work with Ideal:

1. When people pay hundreds and thousands to find their match - they expect 'results'. This makes everyone very selective as they believe they can 'pick' and 'choose' BECAUSE they have 'paid' a lot of money just to meet you. This is not the fault of Ideal - this is simply the truth of what happens when money gets involved with love.

2. Ideal will hide the truth from you if it'd impact a potential match (whether it's a ethical practice or not). This is because they need people to want to see each other again so they can have a 'successful' business. I do believe Linda and Ideal's staff come from a good place with this line of thinking (eg. trying to get people to give others a chance when their set in their ways etc) but the issue I ran into was that they were having very different conversations with my match than what they were telling me. And I only found out because I confronted them about their behaviour and then Ideal had to come clean about what had actually happened. This is NOT ok. Ideal is a facilitator only and they have a responsibility to look after the interests of BOTH matches - which is ONLY possible when they are completely honest with everyone involved. FYI If I had known my match had to be 'convinced' to see me again, I would have promptly said to Ideal to tell him 'good luck on his search' (and I am pretty sure this response is why I wasn't told).

3. You are limited to a pool of matches WILLING to pay hundreds and thousands to Ideal. Now if you're after the knowledge and security that your not meeting a total stranger - this service is great because they verify everyone. It would be better if when you signed up that Ideal looked further than their own portfolio of clients and jumped onto other resources for someone who might be great for you. Ideal will probably reply saying that "according to legislation" they cannot do this sort of 'searching' but its unlikely your going to find your match in such a limited pool so they really need more initiative ways to help give their clients the best chance at love.

I'm glad someone people have found success through Ideal - they are lucky and they probably wouldn't have met without the help of Ideal. But I don't feel that you're any more likely to meet 'the one' through Ideal than any other method of meeting people this day in age.

I hope Ideal has updated its practices since my experience but as I did refuse the partial refund offered (as it was only offered on the basis that I sign a non-disclosure which would prevent me talking about my experience to even my family and friends), I hope the money I paid them has been put to good use as clearly they need it more than me.

I hope this is helpful to anyone reading and good luck to everyone looking for love - it's out there and you will find it one way or another x

Approximate cost: $800