PR NEWSWIRE - The company was recognized by the Better Business Bureau for its continued commitment to operational ethics and integrity. Presented by the Better Business Bureau of Minnesota and North Dakota (BBB), the Torch Award for Ethics is the BBB's highest honor and recognizes exceptional businesses that demonstrate an outstanding commitment to ethics and integrity across all aspects of their operation. It's Just Lunch Minneapolis is a division of IJL Select, the largest and most successful franchise group within the international It's Just Lunch system.
29 posts categorized "It'sJustLunch"
It's Just Lunch Minneapolis Named BBB 2022 Torch Awards for Ethics Finalist
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Online Dating Expert Develops Dating Quiz to Determine Dating Success Probability
GLOBE NEWSWIRE - May 20 - Andrea McGinty, founder of both 33000Dates.com and It's Just Lunch, has developed a new dating quiz that will determine dating success. The questions have been developed based on her over 20+ years in the dating marketplace and what she sees as common mistakes most daters make. The quiz takes less than 10 minutes. Daters will get a score ranging from A to F based on their responses to questions about their online dating profiles, photos, and response tactics, to name a few.
See full article at Globe Newswire
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Class Action Lawsuit Claims It's Just Lunch Defrauded Customers
THE DENVER CHANNEL - Feb 16 - It's Just Lunch sells itself as an elite international matching service that has offices across the country. The company settled one class action lawsuit in 2019 and now faces another. As a part of the lawsuit and settlement agreement, It's Just Lunch agreed to pay ~$5M to impacted clients. The lawsuit called the dating service "a massive scheme to defraud tens of thousands of single professionals throughout the country." In a lengthy statement, the company said, "The new claims in the California lawsuit are brought by two individuals. It is very disappointing and unfortunate that this matter is pending because these allegations are completely without merit. IJL intends to vigorously defend the new suit."
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"33,000 Dates" Coaching Services, Started by It's Just Lunch Founder
LAS VEGAS WEEKLY - Feb 10 - Back in the pre-internet dating era, romantic disaster set Andrea McGinty on her life course. Her fiancé broke things off just weeks before their wedding. This led her to found matchmaking service It's Just Lunch. Fast-forward a quarter century. McGinty sold that business, relocated to Las Vegas five years ago and founded a new company: 33,000 Dates. The name comes from the number of dates she estimates she has set up over the course of her career. She helps women in their 30s, 40s and 50s navigate online dating, from the perspective of writing their profiles and vetting their photos to choosing the right dating site for them.
by C. Moon Reed
See full article at Las Vegas Weekly
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Matchmakers Emerge as an Antidote to the Agony of Online Dating
WALL STREET JOURNAL - Mar 8 - In a 2018 Match.com survey, 55% of respondents said technology makes personal connections harder to make, and 54% felt overwhelmed by the work involved. Melissa Brown, CEO of It's Just Lunch, a matchmaking service founded in 1991, says the company has seen its fastest growth in the past couple of years among daters in their 20s and 30s. "They're sick of the swiping and the countless hours of talking to people that goes nowhere," she said. Three Day Rule, another matchmaking service, grew out of Talia Goldstein's LA apartment, where in 2013 she would host large parties in hopes of fixing up friends. Now CEO of the company, she secured funding from Match Group, and her company boasts ~700 users across 10 cities. Its services start at $5,500. Clients receive professional photo shoots, and matchmakers help them write texts to prospective dates and shop for appropriate clothes. After each date, the matchmaker will check in with both parties and give the client feedback.
by Michelle Hackman
See full article at Wall Street Journal
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$2000 + $99 a Month Silicon Valley Matchmaker
THE BEACH REPORTER - Feb 25 - Veteran wedding planner Constance Curtis launched The List for elite singles in Southern California. It combines "old fashioned intuition with science and technology." "I saw a space in the industry between the dating apps and matchmaking," said Curtis. "Many people using a matchmaker spend between $14,000 and $25,000 for the service." Curtis charges $2000 initiation and a subscription fee of $99/mo. The List is powered by real-life matchmakers and relationship experts with 15 years of combined experience. Elite members are met in person, and receive a personal matchmaker, and receive feedback after each date. The app is free. User's create a free profile and are added to The List's database of potential suitors for its elite members. Free members have access to the site, but not actual matchmaking services. For $1.99, non-elite members can also purchase "coins" to send messages about suitors they are interested in to the matchmakers. They've had 400 downloads, and have 15 elite clients.
by Genie Davis
See full article at The Beach Reporter
Mark Brooks: There really is a gap between dating apps and matchmakers. Noone has quite cracked it yet. Although, I believe Tawkify are occupying that space, Three Day Rule had a go at it, and It's Just Lunch have been working at it for years, but I don't really regard them as matchmakers. It's actually tough to deliver proper matchmaking services for anything less than $5k a year.
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It's Just Lunch Sued For Setting Up Bad Dates
SE TEXAS RECORD - Mar 21 - Robert Rice is suing It's Just Lunch after several bad dates, claiming one woman showed him naked pictures of herself. Seeking punitive damages, Rice filed suit against It's Just Lunch on March 20, alleging the dating service is nothing but a scheme to defraud tens of thousands of single professionals throughout the country.
by David Yates
See full article at SE Texas Record
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It's Just Lunch! To Face Another Lawsuit
ENTERTAINMENT LAW DIGEST - Sep 12 - Lead plaintiff Sarah Dunphy sued It’s Just Lunch!, along with its corporate parent Riverside Partners and director Loren Schlachet. Dunphy claims she paid $2,7K for the service, only to be provided with men who were married, unemployed and otherwise unsuitable. Dunphy says the company makes many other misrepresentations about its service. She seeks class certification and damages for fraud and unjust enrichment.
by Chris Fry
The full article was originally published at Entertainment Law Digest, but is no longer available.
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It's Just Lunch To Face U.S. Class-action Lawsuit
REUTERS - May 15 - It’s Just Lunch International, a matchmaking service, will face a nationwide class-action lawsuit by clients who claimed they were defrauded into paying $1K+ for the services the company did not deliver. Tens of thousands of clients can now seek to collectively try to recoup fees and recover damages.
by Jonathan Stempel
See full article at Trust.org
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Facebook As A Resource For Matchmakers
DIGITAL TRENDS - Aug 10 - Facebook's Graph Search feature has recently been making waves in the online dating industry for its ability to return a list of users that fit the bill (romantically), and more matchmakers are experimenting with it to provide their clients with matches. Matchmakers mainly used social media to let people know their services exist and are reputable. “We use Facebook and Twitter to promote events and build awareness about our company, but not until Graph Search did we use it to reach out to people for dates.” exclaims Anni Powers, COO and Executive Matchmaker for Northern California of The Real Matchmaker. We do not use Graph Search to find matches for our clients as we only match our clients with other It’s Just Lunch users,” says Irene LaCota, Spokesperson for It’s Just Lunch International. This protocol may be due to the results of their survey where 54% users say that they never interact with a love interest on social media, 44% prefer to keep their personal relationships out of cyberspace, and 34% wait for their date to friend them on Facebook before initiating online contact.
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It's Just Lunch Settles Sex Discrimination Lawsuit
SUN SENTINEL - July 22 - Matchmaking service It's Just Lunch agreed to pay $1M to settle allegations of sex discrimination against men who wanted to be dating counselors for the company. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also reached a settlement on behalf of Lynda Twist, the dating service's former human resources director. The EEOC alleged Just Lunch retaliated against Twist for opposing the service's hiring practices. For the next three years, It's Just Lunch will be required to train managers and report to the federal government its compliance with anti-discrimination laws and to track job applicants and whether they are hired or not and why.
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Matchmakers Thrive Despite EHarmony, Match.com
LA TIMES - Feb 14 - "Matchmaking should have been dead by now," said Mark Brooks of Online Personals Watch, a site that's been tracking Internet dating since 2004. Instead, the opposite has happened, he said. Matchmakers not only have survived but are thriving, having been aided and legitimized by the entity that was supposed to have killed them off — the Internet. Like social networking, which had many dating industry experts inaccurately predicting the demise of paid Internet dating sites, Internet dating hasn't killed matchmaking, but fed it. In fact, the three go hand in hand, leading relationship-minded singles to ever higher levels of paid service. Though social networking sites such as Facebook may bring people together and do it for free, there's no guarantee that those brought-together people are available and looking for a relationship. Matchmakers charge $1,000 to $100,000, depending on the exclusivity of the service, the number of matches and how willing they are to go the extra mile.
"You're the therapist, the mother, the best friend, the sister, the nonsexual girlfriend. You have to be everything," said Patti Stanger, star of the TV series "The Millionaire Matchmaker" and proprietor of the L.A.-based Millionaire's Club matchmaking service. Stanger charges men $25k+ a year and female "millionairesses" $55k for 28 months of unlimited introductions. (She finds her female clients take longer to match.)' "
Increasingly, Internet dating is bringing in a matchmaking component. Match's Daily 5 delivers "five matches based on our prediction of which two people would most want to engage in a conversation together," said Match CEO Greg Blatt. Another matchmaking feature called Singled Out, is for "when we have a match with a stronger likelihood of connecting and want to highlight that to our users," Blatt said. "A lot of people put their relationships on the wrong course because they select the wrong people," said Gian Gonzaga, senior director of R&Dfor eHarmony. "A lot of the things that are powerful forces for initial attraction are different from what makes a relationship successful."
"Women are very attracted to the [matchmaking] concept because it's private. They can't be browsed," said Julie Ferman, founder of Cupid's Coach in Westlake Village, a matchmaking service that charges $2,500 to $25,000 annually for an average of 2.2 introductions per month and takes both women and men as paying clients. Matchmaking is strongest among thirty-, forty- and fiftysomethings, according to Ferman. Her average client splits the difference at a median age of 46 and makes at least $50,000. There's thousands of singles using hundreds of matchmakers — eLove, It's Just Lunch, the Millionaire's Club.
It's worth dropping $5k to $10k on a matchmaker if you've got the cash and are looking for a serious relationship, but online sites that charge or have extensive questionnaires can also be a good option, Brooks said. Nonetheless, matchmakers may not have many prospective dates for men in their 20s or women in their 60s, he added.
"The Internet dating services are flawed because they lack service — they have great price, great choice, but not a lot of service," Brooks said. "The matchmaker services are severely flawed because they lack choice."
FULL ARTICLE @ LA TIMES
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Daters Have Only 30 Minutes To Make A Good Impression
PRESS RELEASE -- Sep 14 --'It's Just Lunch' and American Way in flight magazine reveal that when it comes to dating, there's little time to make a good impression. On a first date, 66% of daters will decide in a half hour whether they will see the other person again. 16% make the decision in the first five minutes, and 5% know immediately. Particularly speedy was the 21-39 year old sub-set of survey-takers, 20% of whom need only 5 minutes. The 40-49 year olds are slightly more patient, with 33% allowing their dates more than one hour.
The full article was originally published at Reuters, but is no longer available.
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Economy Fizzles, Sparks Fly
EXPRESS NEWS -- Aug 10 -- Wayne Greene had joined It's Just Lunch before he was laid off from his job. At first, he stopped going on dates because of the expense. Then he figured: "What the heck. If somebody's willing to go out with me when I'm unemployed, maybe I did find the right person." It's Just Lunch ($1,800 for a year-long membership) has experienced more than 16% growth in membership over the past 6 months. Tanis Carpenter paid up front for 60 dates at Together Dating, a national matchmaking service. She declined to specify the cost, but said it was in the thousands of dollars. She met Adam Carpenter on her 2nd date. They married June 28. Together Dating was a bit pricey for Adam but he signed up because he saw the money as an investment.
The full article was originally published at SA Life, but is no longer available.
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Internet Dating Is Flourishing
COURIER POST ONLINE -- May 26 -- There are about 93m single people in the U.S, according to the U.S. Census Bureau but only three million use online dating services. And then there are countless others who turn to professional matchmaking companies. The Right One prides itself on an effective approach that results in a match nationally every 17 minutes and a wedding per day. It's Just Lunch International, doesn't release statistics but the company's president, Irene LaCota, points to its continued expansion in and outside the country as solid proof that its program for the last 18 years indeed works. Both companies agree that the majority of their clients are in their 30s, 40s and 50s, and come from all walks of life. The Right One declined to disclose pricing of its packages, and It's Just Lunch International said its lowest-tier package starts at $1,000. There are many singles that avoid online dating services because they don't want to sacrifice their privacy.
The full article was originally published at Courier Post Online, but is no longer available.
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