Roommates.com

This company might be ok if they were upfront about what you can do for free.
I spent a week desperately waiting for a response to my messages to get a roommate fast (i got a job offer in a different city and need to move fast), only to receive a message, and find out that i can not read it or any message without paying.
If they told me this up front, it would be ok, but waiting to tell me this after i have wasted a week of my time and someone else's seems really dishonest.
Honestly, craigslist works much better and is free.
*Update*
I give the company credit, they responded to this review, quickly, calmly and in a professional manner. However, in my experience, most companies will provide a checklist of features at each price point upon creation of an account, so the customer is not unpleasantly surprised and forced to upgrade.
But i am really impressed with how fast they replied to this, good work.

All of the recommendations on this site are from top-notch scammers that basically scam for a living. They'll be places that are willing to let you stay there rent free, and they would actually pay you to babysit their child. Do not fall for these scams. If anyone gives you a check and asks you to deposit it and spend money then A) go to your local bank and check if it's fake OR B) do not deposit that check no matter what! They will steal your money! Please be safe and go to actual trustworthy sites.

Remember, if something looks too good to be true, it most likely is. Do not give too much info out. Do some reverse image/phone # searches before you give out any more info! You'll save yourself a lot of time, money, and headaches. Be safe! Don't waste your time on this scam site that's no better than craigslist (it's probably worse).

Despite the negative reviews, I signed up for this site, thinking my luck would be better. Nope. Scammers paradise. I'd get a "perfect match" notification, only to find the profile gone by the time I clicked on the message. Don't bother with this site. I never thought I would say this, but Craigslist is a dream compared to this site. Their "pay to play" model is just plain dumb considering all the scammers on the site.

Roommates.com: No need to post your canned response about the site being a bulletin board in which people post for roommates, etc. We get it. Site still sucks.

Total waste of money. There are not enough people on there to really find anyone. You have to pay to communicate, which is fine, but there has to be people to communicate with. I contacted them after less than two weeks and was told no refunds. Apparently this is a common experience. Found my roommate from craigslist, lol.

Roommates.com is a great service that connects you to trustworthy people. I found a great roommate from this site! Giving 4 stars instead of 5 because I don't get nearly as many leads as I do from other sources [i. E. craigslist and facebook], but in the end Roommates.com was the source that ultimately allowed me to reach my goal. Very easy to set up and free to use

If you add a phrase in your ad about checking background info you will have better luck. Meet people at public places first before bringing them to your home. I asked that applicants bring their driver's licenses and proof of income to meetings. Talk with friends about how you can do this in a way that meets your needs and respects your future roommate. Put things in writing before moving in.

I had to cancel my listing once I realized what they were doing. Here was my comment to them: There is no functionality except to see a match or listing but only basic information without upgrading. There is no way to communicate with prospects without upgrading. In fact there is really nothing useful that can be done without upgrading. Why do you allow people to even post for free. I was VERY dissatisfied and your service is useless to me and I found it underhanded and misleading. If you had just said that this is NOT a free service up front, it would have at least been honest. I will be using another service and posting my experience regarding Roommates.com.

I'm a new member and I have already been reached out to by scammers within 24 hours of being on the site. I have found one real person but aside from that it has not been a positive or productive outcome. The scammers also get aggressive.

Roommates.com seriously was awesome in helping me find a roommate. I signed up on a few other websites to find a roommate and no others quite compared. I am extremely organized and felt like roommates.com and their layout was as well. It was easy to describe what I had available for rent as well as list all of the features and details. They also have an internal email feature that makes it easy to communicate with potential future roommates without giving out any of your personal contact information. I upgraded to the 30 day membership so I could have access to view emails from potentials as well as have access to other information. I literally found and decided upon my roommate 1 day before my upgraded membership expired, which is awesome because I'm super picky and I did not even know that it was expiring the next day! I really do recommend this and only this website if you're searching for a roommate!

As with the other reviews, I can verify everything that they've said is true. As a paying member, you are subjected to scams. When you turn these scammers in, nothing is done to remove them from the site. Other non-paying members can not view your profile or read your e-mails. If you send an e-mail to complain about the lack of customer service, you will get a rude response telling you to just discontinue use of their service. They will not offer you a refund. They are a waste of money. Don't bother.

Roommates.com did exactly what it advertises. I got on and paid for the use of it. The person renting a room also paid her part. It took me about a week to find a roommate. The reviews complain about scammers, but you will find them everywhere, Craig's list and Facebook included. I am very satisfied with my experience with roommates.com and if needed, will use them again.

This website sucks! I am sorry for setting up an account, what a waste of time- I can't set my preference to narrow my search and then to have to upgrade just to figure what area of phoenix these listings are located. I will blog about my experience through Roommates.com not a very easy or rewarding experience this has been for me. I am more frustrated then ever wasting my time with this ridiculous site. I will spend more time validating through rating blogs about you ROOMMATE.COM good luck with your business, I would rather go through craigslist then to pay roommate.com who trick viewers to setup an account only to request payment for capabilities to view information on available roommate ads from the start of creating an account. Roommate doesn't operate business on integrity or for the interest of internet prospectors.

You can't do anything in the free version of the site that would lead towards finding a new roommate. You can't see what a person writes about themselves, you can't read their messages, you can't see their photos or exchange contact info. The only thing you can do is write a profile for free. I suppose that's convenient for the service to claim they have lots of people using the site. A bunch of free profiles seeing their matches, sending messages in the dark, hoping the other person has a paid account. But for $20/month, it seems like quite the premium for a bare bones profile matching and message services. It doesn't really have any vetting behind it, to give it an appeal over just using something that is free, like Craigslist, or posting on community Reddit/facebook groups etc.

In 2008, I had the opportunity to move to Boulder, Colorado for a new position. Not knowing the area well--and not having time to travel there to investigate--I found Roommates.com and was able to connect with a family that had a basement to rent. It worked perfectly for me! After a couple phone calls and providing references to my prospective landlord/roommate, I made the commitment and moved to Colorado! I ended up staying in that rental for two years, much longer than originally intended as it worked out so well.

A couple years later, I went through the same process when moving to northern Virginia for a job in DC. Worked great again, and while my landlord eventually decided to no longer want a roommate, I was once again able to use Roommates.com to find my next residence!

I would not hesitate to use them again if the need arose. Just be sure to *exchange* references with your prospective landlord/roommate and check them before committing.

Try it!

I am a new customer and I sign up and was approved by them via email, I even upgrade. They sent me some matches but when i went to log into, their system would not take my log in (aol) or my password. I request a reset - several times and have not gotten anything at all. Is this site a SCAM? I am wondering since I am not getting a reply from them. Has anyone else had this issue?

I have used roommate. Com for several years. It is a little more expensive then other sites but in the scheme of renting, it is not ridiculous. I have sent many messages that have gone unanswered. I assume the receiver did not want to pay to get the message. I feel like if they will not pay to receive messages one they're not very serious about finding a place to live and two if they won't pay $15 to help themselves find a place will they pay the rent repeatedly on time. I have been successful using this site. I do wish it had a cheaper annual fee that you could use instead of the shorter more expensive ones.

When I decided to place an ad for a roommate in my home, I was reluctant about the type of person responding as this was a new experience for me. I started searching for a site specific to my needs and came across Roommates.com. I joined and placed my posting and within a week or two received an email from a potential roommate. She is an awesome person, honest, caring, professional... she is my friend! I am looking for another roommate to join us. Thank you so very much. Elaine

The site encourages you to sign up and create a profile without ever revealing that you have to pay a fee in order to read the messages that people send you. It's only after you've put in the work of creating a profile, and you get a notification that someone sent you a message, that the site reveals you have to "upgrade" in order to read the message.

This is obviously intentionally deceptive on their part. If they wanted people to make an informed decision about whether to sign up, they'd say right on the front page, "If you create a profile, you have to be prepared to pay or it won't work."

This also allows them to make deceptive claims about how many users are on their site. They can count everyone who creates a free profile as a "user", without disclosing that most of those "users" abandoned their profile as soon as they found out they had to pay.

My husband and I had never done anything like this before and saw this site had good reviews so we gave it a try.

At first they seemed good. We got a few calls, one or two people came out to see the room. But the longer we were on, the less action we got. I also noticed I was seeing the same people looking for a room for months at a time.

The kicker for me is that in the last 6 weeks I noticed people being removed from my matches only to come back on a few days later as a match.

I am currently working with a realtor at full price to rent my room. We had no choice, this sight just did not work.

The site has low activity; same rooms appear month after month.
Messages are not prompt, so by the time received the person contacting you may have disappeared or taken a different room depending on role.
Quality of the users varies, and nothing is vetted -- not the renters, not the landlords.

I agree. Roommates.com is a huge waste of time and money. I was looking to rent a room in NYC. After upgrading for the 1 month unlimited access, I sent out about 40 inquires. Of the 10 or so that actually replied, 9 were from scam artists. The tenth I'm not sure that he was or not. The site does alert you about scammers. Basically everyone that replied to me, I received a message from the administrators that the user was a fraud and suppressed. Complete waste of time and money. I don't mind paying to upgrade if I'm going to get what I need. With this site it's not worth it. I believe almost 90% of the profiles are scammers. Zero stars.

Love this website! It's a paid account, but it's worth it, plus it weeds out all the baddies, in my opinion. Not only did i find a great roommate through roommates.com, but had so many great potential people contact me! Highly recommend it!

I found a roommate through here, and trusted it because I thought it would go by personality. I emailed roommates.com support just to let them know that it simply just did not work for me and it was a horrible experience. All they replied back was that I should have done a background check. Well, background checks don't always show that people are insane and thieves. I am more upset with the lack of caring by the website more so than my horrible experience with my roommate. Finding a roommate in a big city that you do not know anyone is hard enough, and though in theory this website is a great idea, they need to show a little bit more compassion for when it doesn't work. I wish they would at least refund people when their website does not work. I will not be recommending this to anyone, and highly believe you should not use it. Save your money.