Quote:Match.com, a unit of IAC/Interactive Corp., is accused in a federal lawsuit of goading members into renewing their subscriptions through bogus romantic e-mails sent out by company employees. In some instances, the suit contends, people on the Match payroll even went on sham dates with subscribers as a marketing ploy...
In a separate suit, Yahoo Inc.'s personals service is accused of posting profiles of fictitious potential dating partners on its Web site to make it look as though many more singles subscribe to the service than actually do...
full article:
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsarti...ternetNews&storyid=2005-11-18T190230Z_01_FOR861199_RTRIDST_0_OUKIN-UK-ONLINEDATING-LAWSUITS.XML
Quote:bogus romantic e-mails sent out by company employees
I think that this is probably common on these types of sites - there's a site (ashleymadison.com) I used to frequent :-[ that if I didn't use the account for a few weeks, I'd log back on and find that someone in the same province, usually only looking for something "online" or similar, would send me a collect msg with very attractive pictures and everything. And every single one of the profiles would eventually come up as "not found or deleted" a few months later.
A related article. Some politicians are calling for the online dating industry to be regulated to combat fraud...
Quote:The biggest problem with Internet dating is the snake oil. There is, for starters, the guy in Atlantic City who just pleaded guilty to 10 counts of wire fraud for scamming women around the country with fake Internet profiles. He'd tell women he met online that he needed money to move to their area, then spend it at the roulette table...
...a handful of states have also attempted to clamp down on fraud in Internet dating: New York has passed a consumer protection statute to regulate Web sites, and proposals are being weighed or have already passed in California, Florida, Michigan, Texas and Virginia that would force online dating sites to tell clients whether they perform criminal background checks on members. These laws wouldn't require background checks. They would just shame providers who don't perform them.
full article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...01402.html