"We have provided our service to clients living with various disabilities and feel it only right to be transparent with you before offering a membership.
"Regretfully, others are not always open to dating someone living with your disability and may decline to go forward with a match."
The email went on to say that the company "found that achieving good outcomes for full-time wheelchair user clients can be quite challenging" and added: "As we get more enquiries from the disabled, we are considering developing a specialised brand for the disabled dater."
Webster said that she was reduced to tears by the email.
"I just received this email from a 'professional' dating service, I have been crying for an hour," she wrote.
"When I spoke to them on the phone they said that my disability was fine, but when I clarified that I was a wheelchair user, this."
Webster told her followers that the exchange was an example of the sorts of discrimination that disabled people face every day.
"Next time a disabled person tries to talk to you about ableism, please remember that it's not just frustrating things like a lack of ramps. It's stuff like this, that hurts more than I can say," she wrote.
"Imagine for a second being told that you are too disabled for a non-disabled person to love."
Webster was flooded with messages of support, with many agreeing that her treatment had been unfair.
"Are they trying to say disabled people can only date other disabled people??? How f***ing stupid is that??" wrote one supporter.
Another wrote: "Surely the best person to decide if they want to date a person with a disability, is the potential date?"
Paula Gotch, the operations director who drafted the email to Webster, told The Times: "I am very upset that I have upset someone."
Gotch said she was "trying to be honest" but also blamed societal attitudes for the response.
"Sadly, it is the world we live in. It is not us that does not want to help disabled people to help others. We just struggle to see the happy outcomes that they are looking for."
"Other people — not us — may make a judgment and say, 'No, that's going to be hard. I just want someone that's able-bodied.'
"If you met someone in real life, you get to know them as a whole person, don't you? It is more likely to work."
