Elite dating agency must pay back £13k to ‘deceived’ divorcee
‘You shouldn’t promise people who are in a fragile state of mind, in their mid40s, the man of their dreams’
A PREMIUM dating agency has been ordered to refund a client almost £13,000 after it failed to find the wealthy woman the “man of her dreams”.
Tereza Burki, 47, paid Seventy Thirty Ltd £12,600 after she was assured it only dealt in “crème de la crème” matches, the High Court heard.
But Judge Richard Parkes QC today ordered the agency to repay her fee, ruling that she had been “deceived” by Lemarc Thomas, who was Seventy Thirty’s managing director at the time.
Upholding Ms Burki’s claim, the judge ruled that Mr Thomas was guilty of “deceit” after misleading the divorced mother-of-three about the number of potential suitors on the site.
Businesswoman Ms Burki, who lives in Chelsea, central London, was also awarded £500 for the “disappointment and sadness” she suffered. She had signed up to the agency in 2014, hoping to find a man with “a lifestyle similar or more affluent than her own” and, ideally, “multiple residences”.
She also said it was essential that her perfect match would be prepared to have children, as she had always wanted four. However, it was found that, while the agency boasted of more than 7,000 members, only about 100 of them were men actively looking for love. It was concluded that the Ms Burki, a management consultant, would not have paid the money and joined up had Mr Thomas not knowingly given her “a wholly false impression”.
The court heard how Ms Burki had believed Mr Thomas when he claimed that the site had “a substantial number” of potential matches for her.
But the judge said: “My conclusion from the evidence is that there are at the very most perhaps 200 active members of Seventy Thirty, and probably fewer. That points to a maximum of around 100 active male members. A membership of 100 active men cannot by any stretch of the imagination be described as a substantial number.”
He added: “The representations made by Mr Thomas were therefore false and misleading. Had Ms Burki known what the true size of the active membership was, she would not have joined Seventy Thirty.”
Giving evidence during the case, Ms Burki told the judge: “You shouldn’t promise people who are in a fragile state of mind, in their mid-40s, the man of their dreams.
“You are entrusting a service you believe is professional, who will take care of your interests and have your best interests at heart.”
Susie Ambrose, Seventy Thirty’s founder, said it had successfully matched more than 6,000 lonely hearts, and that 63 babies had been born as a result since she set up the agency 2001.
The Knightsbridge-based agency claimed to have about 1,500 active members and that Ms Burki had been sent five potential matches that fit her requirements soon after joining, though it is not believed she met any of these matches in person.
Despite being awarded £13,100 by the court, Ms Burki was ordered to pay Seventy Thirty £5,000 in libel damages after writing a Google review of the agency, describing it as “a scam”.
The judge accepted that the agency did have a “sizeable database” and was not “a fundamentally dishonest or fraudulent operation”.
“Ms Burki has not proved that Seventy Thirty lacked the means or intention to operate an effective matchmaking service, let alone that it was engaged in a fraudulent scheme to extract money from its clients for the benefit of its founder,” he ruled.