Van, 40, is one of many millionaires looking for love on the website millionairesforyou.com, a dating service catering to the extremely wealthy.
Sitting across from me in his button-down shirt and casual blue jeans, Van, 40, with his boyish good looks, willingly admits he’s looking to find love.
“I want a good person with a good heart,” he says, then later punches in more of the specifics: “Somebody who likes to travel; likes to work out; and eats healthy.
“I want someone who can be away from home for two or three weeks at a time. Someone who is a morning person and likes kids (but doesn’t really want any) as I have a pile of nieces and nephews,” he says, rhyming off the list he’s compiled on his BlackBerry. “If she speaks French and Spanish that’s a real bonus.”
His laundry list of qualities may seem hard to find, but Van — a retail mogul with a seven-figure salary can afford to be choosy … literally.
Enter Lisa Black, owner of Canadian owned and operated Millionaires For You (www.millionairesforyou.com), an elite dating service that caters to wealthy men, like Van, and the women who hope to meet them. This isn’t the first millionaire dating service (nor the first one I’ve written about), but it is, according to Black, the first that existed in Canada.
As with all her clients, Van first had to confirm his millionaire status with documented proof that his assets total a minimum of $1,000,000.
Next, Black searched her roster of close to 1,000 women to find ones that met Van’s criteria.
“I have a few prospects in mind for Van,” Black admits, but adds she has just started working with him.
For Van and the rest of Black’s male millionaire clientele, membership fees start at $9,995 -— and I thought buying credits on Lavalife was expensive. For the women, the service is free so long as you are beautiful and, oh yeah, have a couple brain cells.
“The women have to be attractive, in shape, and they have to carry themselves well,” says Black.
She says her service targets a specific niche market — millionaire men — but I wonder if she may have also hit upon another niche — gold diggers.
The name alone, Millionaires For You, sends dollar signs into the eyes of some women and the longing in their hearts … for expensive jewelry.
“Absolutely (a millionaire’s dating service) can pull in the wrong type of women, but part of our job is to screen and make sure those aren’t the women we’re introducing to our clients,” says Black.
She says most of her clients enjoy her thorough screening process. “They don’t want to waste their time going on dates or introductions that don’t make sense.”
They want love instantly, or as instant as they can get, and are willing to pay the hefty price tag to find it.
