What is Ashley Madison?
Ashley Madison is an online dating service and social networking site that is especially intended for people who are married or are already in relationships. It does sound weird but that’s what makes the platform stand out from its competitors. Yes, the platform actively promotes adultery. And guess what there are more than 60 million users in 53 countries all over the world on this platform. It seems to be quite popular even though it may break societal taboos.
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Ashley Madison hopes to spice up your married life and energize it with some well-deserved excitement. It is the leading discreet, like-minded dating community in the world. Ashley Madison’s members are united in a desire to seek out real, discreet connections and the company gives you a platform to search for what’s missing. The company claims to find you discreet relationships of all kinds whether it be married, attached, looking to explore, or just curious to discover what’s out there. Ashley Madison says that the platform is everyone looking for excitement in life no matter who they are – students, lonely housewives and married men, singles, office workers, tradespeople, entrepreneurs, retirees, and everyone in between.
The business model here is a bit different than others. Rather than paying a monthly premium membership fee, there is a credit system. You buy credits and pay some credit for every interaction you have with other users on the site. This means you only pay for what you use or do on the site.
There are mobile apps available on both leading platforms: Android and iOS so you don’t have to worry about the device you are using.
Why you should think about deleting your Ashley Madison account?
Like any other dating platform in existence, there is bound to be a dark side to it. Let us take a look at some of these sketchy details that might make you want to rethink your choices and maybe even make you get rid of your account and ditch the platform for good.
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Ashley Madison offered a supposed “guarantee” that you will find someone on the platform no matter what. But that turned out to be a big lie. You had to shell out a lot of money on the platform for that to happen. Users had to purchase the most expensive package, send a lot of expensive “priority” messages to 18 unique members every month for three months, send five Ashley Madison gifts per month, and engage in 60 minutes of paid chat per month. That is quite a ridiculous amount of money to be spent to receive a guarantee for a date. Later in 2016, this guarantee was scrapped off after receiving a lot of backlash from the users.
Ashley Madison has also been exposed for having a lot of fake profiles i.e. female bot accounts just to attract male audiences to the platform. It was found that there were about 70000 bots disguised as females sending messages to male users. The company also states in their terms of service that “many profiles on the site are for amusement purposes only”.
Ashley Madison users Guerilla Marketing strategies to advertise its platform. It has been found that the company has created fake criticism websites filled with ads for Ashley Madison. It also contains fake testimonials from anonymous users claiming that the platform is legitimate.
In 2015 the company was hacked by groups of hackers known as the Impact Team. They claimed that the security deployed by the company was always weak. They stole a lot of personal information about the site’s user base and threatened to release names, home addresses, search histories, and credit card numbers if the site was not immediately shut down. Later the data was leaked online which even included information about the company’s CEO.
And then there is the thing about the company’s business model. Even though there is no membership fee to use the site there is an exit fee. Users are forced to pay $19 to completely delete their account from the platform. And even though they paid the exit fee their accounts weren’t permanently deleted and were still recoverable.
I hope these facts changed your perception of Ashley Madison. If you don’t want to be associated with the platform you can choose to part ways with it and get rid of your account.
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Ask Tech Support Live NowWhat happens when you delete your Ashley Madison account?
When you delete your Ashley Madison account, all your account information is deleted permanently including all your photos, sent messages, winks, gifts, all your site usage history, and all your personally identifiable information. This will remove your user profile from search and you will be hidden from other users on the platform and you will not receive any more notifications either. And the unused credits remaining on your account will also be removed and you will not be able to use them anymore.
And Ashley Madison makes it very clear that the deletion process is irreversible and you will not be able to get back any of your information once you complete the deletion process. So be warned about this when you go ahead and actually delete your account.
Image: ashleymadison.com
What happens when you unsubscribe/cancel your Ashley Madison subscription?
There is no actual subscription package or premium membership on Ashley Madison. So the only thing you need to worry about is the credits you have purchased on the site. You will not be billed automatically for the credits package when you close your account. But the unused credits will be removed once you delete your account for good. And you will not be reimbursed for the remaining credits either. So if you don’t want the credits to go to waste, you can use them up before you delete your account.
How to unsubscribe/cancel your Ashley Madison subscription package?
Please note that canceling a subscription prior to its renewal date does not entitle you to a refund, but simply prevents the subscription from automatically renewing. But you can continue to use your canceled subscription until it expires.
Follow the guide below depending on the device you are using to cancel or unsubscribe from your subscription package of credits on Ashley Madison.
Cancel your subscription package on iOS devices (iPhone or iPad)
To cancel your Ashley Madison subscription package bought via iTunes follow the steps below on your iPhone or iPad:
- Step 1: Go to Settings on your device and choose iTunes and App Store
- Step 2: Then tap your Apple ID and View Apple ID
- Step 3: Now enter your password
- Step 4: Scroll down to Subscriptions and tap on Manage.
- Step 5: Select Ashley Madison and click on Cancel Subscription
- Step 6: Now confirm that you want to cancel your subscription of credits
Cancel your subscription on Android devices
To cancel your Ashley Madison subscription package bought via Google Play, follow the steps on your Android device:
- Step 1: Launch the Google Play store on your phone
- Step 2: Open the menu by tapping on your profile icon
- Step 3: Now tap on Payments & subscriptions
- Step 4: Tap on Subscriptions from the list of options
- Step 5: Locate Badoo from the list of subscriptions
- Step 6: Select Cancel Subscription and confirm.
Cancel your subscription on the website
If you bought the credit package from the website follow the instructions below on a web browser of your choice:
- Step 1: Log in to your account using your email address and password
- Step 2: Select the Manage Profile option on the navigation bar
- Step 3: Now click on the Manage Subscriptions option
- Step 4: Then choose the subscription package that you wish to cancel
- Step 5: Now confirm that you want to cancel your account
How to delete your Ashley Madison account?
If you want to delete your Ashley Madison account, it is recommended that you delete all personally identifying information from the site before you delete your account. Follow the step-by-step instructions below to delete your account:
- Step 1: Log in to your account using your email address and password
- Step 2: Select the Manage Profile option on the navigation bar
- Step 3: Now click on the Delete Profile option on the left-hand side of your screen
- Step 4: Click on the Delete Your Profile button at the bottom of the page
- Step 5: Confirm the delete action to delete your profile permanently
Note: Ashley Madison states that it may take up to 48 hours for your user profile to be completely removed from the site. And they may also retain some of your account histories for up to 6 months after deleting your account.
How to disable/hide your Ashley Madison account?
If you don’t want to permanently delete your account but want to take a break from it for some time, you can choose to deactivate your account. You might want to do this if you’re going on a vacation or simply don’t want to use the app for a while.
This action will prevent you from being shown to new potential matches. And you won’t also be annoyed with notifications and emails either.
Follow the steps below to deactivate or disable your account:
- Step 1: Log in to your account using your email address and password
- Step 2: Select the Manage Profile option on the navigation bar
- Step 3: Now click on the Delete Profile option on the left-hand side of your screen
- Step 4: Click on Deactivate Your Profile button under the Deactivate my account section
- Step 5: You will be redirected to another page. Now mention a reason why you are deactivating your profile
- Step 6: Now click on Deactivate and confirm your action to temporarily disable your account
You can always choose to reactivate your account in the future when you feel like it and continue with all your previous account data intact.
How to appeal for an account deactivated by Ashley Madison?
If your account got removed by Ashley Madison you might have violated some rule in their Terms of Service. And you might not be able to get access to your old account if you are guilty of doing so. But if you think you were wrongfully banned from the site you can contact Customer Support at and explain your situation as well as you can. But don’t get your hope up because they may not always be able to give you access to your banned account.
But if you deleted your account on your own, there is no possibility of regaining access to your old account. Once it is deleted all your information is deleted permanently along with it.
How to stop receiving notifications from Ashley Madison?
If you want to stop receiving notifications – both email and push notifications about new matches and messages, you can choose to deactivate your account. You can completely customize what kind of email notifications you get from your activity on Ashley Madison. If you still want to use the app and just want to mute the notifications follow the instructions below on the app:
- Step 1: Log in to your account using your email address and password
- Step 2: Open up the menu by pressing on the Hamburger menu icon
- Step 3: Now select the Notifications option from the menu
- Step 4: You will see a list of options with a checkbox next to each option. Uncheck the boxes next to the type of notifications you want to mute
Note: After this, you might still get some promotional emails. If you want to get rid of that too, you can unsubscribe from Ashley Madison emails completely. To do this just go to your inbox, find an email from Ashley Madison, scroll to the bottom and click on Unsubscribe.
If you want to resume getting notifications again, simply log into your account and reactivate your profile. Then you will start receiving notifications normally again.
Our Final Verdict
I hope this article made you aware of all the controversies surrounding Ashley Madison. After knowing about these facts you might have even thought about wanting to delete your account for good and leaving the platform. If you are still having issues with anything, then be sure to visit the Help Center at https://www.ashleymadison.com/app/public/faq and search for the problem or contact the Customer Support Team at https://media.ashleymadison.com/contact/ for further assistance or inquiries. They will help guide you through your issues and clear any confusions you might have.
If you are looking to delete other dating accounts, look into our guide on deleting Your OnlyFans Account, deleting Match Account, and deleting Badoo account.
Abby
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