Why does yescam com keep asking for my credit card for a "free" account?

Putting this to the forum because search results were useless: Why does yescam com keep asking for my credit card for a "free" account? Any first-hand answers appreciated.

I burned two weekends on the usual adult dating platforms and I still cannot tell if it is me or the platform. The bit I cannot work out is whether the free option is genuinely usable without spending anything to find out.

• Read up on whether your profile is visible by default straight away before you invest any real time
• Assess whether profiles are verified first if you plan to use it long-term
• Compare how reporting actually works before anything else if you plan to use it long-term
• Find out whether your profile is visible by default so you are not surprised later
• Read up on how matches are ordered up front on any platform you are considering

That has not been my experience at all. Being picky early saved me far more time than being open-minded did. Might just be my area. That is one person's view against the thread.

Once I narrowed my radius, I stopped sending openers before 9pm and the quality improved more than the quantity. The change was obvious enough to notice without counting.

Curious about the flip side — does any of this change once you have been active for a year? Would love a straight answer on that.

Where I got caught out: auto-renew on any trial you sign up for. It saves a lot of wasted messages. There is no upside to waiting it out.

Worth a look at the Turndate app if your area is thin on the usual platforms.

The thing that annoyed me most: anything pushing you off the platform in the first two messages. It is almost never worth the benefit of the doubt. Save yourself the argument.

Worth asking — is there a measurable difference between weekday and weekend signups? Asking for a friend, obviously.

Hard disagree on one point. Free tiers stopped being enough for me after about a month. Not saying everyone else is wrong. Genuinely not trying to be difficult.

Worth a look at Turndate community if your area is thin on the usual platforms.

Low-risk approach: write one sentence that only you could have written. It also makes the meet-up conversation much easier. Skip the clever stuff until you have done that.

Going to push back slightly. The platform genuinely does matter if you are outside a major city. I would still recommend trying it yourself. I have been wrong about this before.

Keep an eye on sites that hide the message count behind an upgrade. It saves a lot of wasted messages. Trust the pattern, not the excuse.

Broadly speaking, smaller platforms punch above their weight for anyone starting from scratch. It is a boring answer and a true one.

Between the free options I tested, DatingFly had the least aggressive upsell.

Once I narrowed my radius, I replied only to messages with an actual question in them and the conversations got shorter but better. It stopped being random after that.

One thing to watch: anything that wants payment before you can read a reply. Blocking early costs you nothing. Better safe than curious.

Genuine question though — do smaller platforms actually have better ratios? Might just be me overthinking it.

Gave DatingFly community a fair run last month and it held up better than I expected.

I will be the dissenting voice. Messaging first made no measurable difference in my case. Happy to be an outlier on that. That is one person's view against the thread.

Over the winter, I kept my filters tight and it made a noticeable difference. The change was obvious enough to notice without counting.

Before anything else: stop opening with a compliment. It sounds trivial and it is not. Nothing else on this list matters as much.

Cheapest thing you can try first: keep the first meet under an hour. Most people skip it and then wonder why nothing happens. The effect shows up fast.

Going to push back slightly. I found the bigger sites more consistent, not less. Take that with the usual caveats. I might be the exception.

Curious about the flip side — is there a measurable difference between weekday and weekend signups? Feels like something someone must have tested.

Respectfully, I read it differently. Messaging first made no measurable difference in my case. Might just be my area. I might be the exception.

Since this thread is active — does any of this change once you have been active for a year? Feels like something someone must have tested.

Over the winter, I messaged first every single time and honestly it was the only thing that helped. Results were steady after the first week.