November 18, 2005 12:21 PM PST
Suit claims Match.com set up fake dates
- Related Stories
-
Court deals blow to dating-service spammer
August 3, 2005 -
True love with a criminal-background check
February 28, 2005 -
Software seeks out casual connections
February 14, 2005 -
Photos: Bachelor in a bubble
February 10, 2005 -
Lavalife flows into AOL's IM community
December 17, 2003
Plaintiff says e-dating site sent bogus romantic e-mails, set up sham dates to keep customers. Different suit claims Yahoo posted fictitious profiles.
The story "Suit claims Match.com set up fake dates" published November 18, 2005 at 12:21 PM is no longer available on CNET News.
Content from Reuters expires after 30 days.
42 comments
Join the conversation! Add your comment (Log in or register)
Sounds like false representation to me. But I'm a computer guy, not a lawyer.
does from those things."
If you are fugly and your profile reads like a loser, then maybe
you can't get dates. When I was single, I was able to sign up on
one of these sites and have more dates with attractive,
interesting women than I had time for. I can't imagine that it
would be worth it for match.com to have to hire women to
attract customers, the numbers don't make sense. How much
would you have to pay an attractive woman to salvage a $12 a
month subscriber?
based on the perception that you provide something you do not
or can not is called DE - ception.
I subscribed to True.com and was flooded with replies to e-
mails & "Flirt Alerts" that were to have been sent by myself to a
LOT of women that were not even close to any criteria that I
picked.
I assume that their logic is that if they make contact for you, you
would have an easier time turning down strange people. Make
sense? It doesn;t to me either. I am an individual with respect
for others. I finally gave up telling these women that there was
some sort of mistake. I eventually gave up and stopped replying
and treating them EXACTLY the way that I did not wanted to be
treated myself.
ON the sites listed in the arrticle I would attempt to contact
people and eventually would e-mail someone and jsut ask them
to reply so that I knew the service actually dealt with real people.
I cancelled every one of these online scams. Why am I paying
any fee to meet people that are not real and do not exist?
Glad to see someone is fighting back.
Match.com will be free soon! Dating sites of today are a thing of the past or for idiots who want to pay for rejection. MySpace.com offers the same free rejection.... www.myspace.com go there now!
Hence, My Space is not a dating site at all.
What I have found is that there are a lot of people who are not willing to put the time and communication into online dating to make it work. Not to mention those people who just aren't good at online communications. I also find people who never learn how to get over the rejection that is inevitable in dating online or otherwise. If you get a response from one and in ten women you write you are doing good - accept that its a numbers game. If you want the right match you have to do a lot of looking and that means a lot of writing. It takes time and well... work. I have also found lots people who can't seem to make transistion from writing to talking and from talking to meeting and dating. If your writing works meet the person in a safe environment and find out if there is any reason to see them again. If not... "next"! I think its really easier just to blame all the shallow people on dating sites for your not having success rather than admitting that you aren't willing to put the time and effort in to using what is really a pretty amazing system - or that you simply admitting that you can't communicate effectively. Online dating services certainly beat the hell out of the bar scene - or any other way meeting people. While their qualification systems may require more improvement - where else in life can you get any prequalification of the people you meet?
If this case goes to court, I will be really surprised. There are all kinds of scams out there - not just online. Looking for out of court damage settlements from successful businesses certainly isn't new. No one paid me to write this either.
Here's my question to you: If a membership is $65 for 6 months (that's my paid rate), that's roughly $11/month. Say the average date is 3 hours long. Even if they were paying their employees $11/hour (note: in N Out pays this) which is highly unlikely, one date would cost them half of the renewal fees... and that's not including the time it took to contact the person, write to them, call, set up the date, drive there, etc. Not to mention the unbelievable risk of lawsuit from the employee who was 'forced' to go on dates with strangers.
Hmm... YOu think they're going to this trouble for $20 worth of income (note: after subtracting the price of the one date, the money they make in 6 months from this guy's membership, roughly $20, would then be cut up into the marketing expenses, expenses of operations, salary, etc...)
Now, take it a step further... imagine only 1 in 2 guys signs back up after their 1 Magical Match Fake Date (I'm assuming these girls aren't sleeping with the men... forced prostitution for $11 an hour seems even more unlikely in this universe)... Now they're just breaking even if they convert every other guy with just one date.
This is absurd. No company would bother, especially with 15 MILLION users, and 250 employees... put on your thinking caps, people. Seriously.
D
This is all old news they have been doing this forever. Ask the people you talk to about details form your hometown. Weather sports etc...They will not reply..
It will be a coincidence that the probably automated emails occur near subscription end dates and such tactics. It will later surface as this drags out that people will step forward from the companies to outline the automated code, fake profile creation, and such, probably under wraps right now by binding work agreements and contracts. A subpeona will evantually reveal the pictures were provided for pay alongside agreements never to disclose what the companies were going to do with them, such as create fake automated profile emails, and that a re-imbursement out of court agreement will be struck "with no admission of guilt" after which subscribers from such and such a date to another will be provided - guess what! more subscription time!
This accuser is probably a big loser. Most likely fat, bald, and thugly.
What type of incentives have you received to write such a persuasive reply to this issue?
Mind you though, you caught me by pushing this too much!
So are you an employee, very committed one you are huh?
haha.....
It is the best way, most of the time you already know the person and his or her background, so you would know if that is the sought of person that deserves your time.
Why will a person spend all their time on a pc speaking to someone they do not know, have never met and surely dont know what type of character they have?
Let me remind you guys, it is easy to pretend behind a computer, very hard to when you are face to face with a person.
But what about when you meet the person and they already filled your mind with crap? ( in the case you went the modern way of dating)
Am I right?
myspace.com audience: 15-24
If you're 26+, it's a tad tough to date those youngins.
I rest my case...
It's quite easy to create a few phony profiles in areas that have a lot of non-paying members then send out messages.
Anyone else notice how both cases were brought by men? Any site that reports having more than a 50% female registered base is telling a bold faced lie. Yes, there are women out there who use the services, and no they do not out number the men on those sites.
It was probably my mistake to stay registered at the site, but I got stuck in there. I found loads of female and male friends from all over the world via that site and have become a regular visitor of their chat. And I tell you what, I am probably the only russian on that site they treat friendly. I'm not looking for a boyfriend or husband cause I have one. And all of them know it. Nevertheless, I keep on getting nasty mails from those who even doesn't know me and think I'm like one of those who caused the described above lawsuit.
Me and my BF get in their chat from time to time to keep in touch with our friends. I mean the real ones, who support us when we have hard times and whom we gladly will help right away shoould they get in trouble.
So, a few days ago I found out I couldn't get in the site. I mean it was just blank when I tried to get in the homepage. I asked my buddies in the messenger if they had the same problem. It occured they didn't have any problems like that. ONLY cause they are in the USA.
So next thing I did, I made a research and found out why people from any country but the US, Canada, China and some European ones can't get into that "international dating site" . They started banning IP addresses of all the countries but listed above.
This is what the staff posted in the boards of the site:
"Nov 18 @ 2:54PM Matchdoctor
Posts: We wanted to address this issue since it has been popping up here on the boards. We started to block a lot of high fraud/scam countries (???!! - auth.) from accessing our website (Easern Europe, Philippines, African Countries, etc.). We would like to sincerely apologize to everyone that was communicating with anyone that is no longer able to access the site. The reason for doing this was to reduce the amount of fraudulent charges which has increased greatly in the last few months and also scamming on the website. It was getting out of hand and had to be reduced before it cost us too much in charge back fees and member complaints of the increasing spam/scams mails. We hope our users will be understanding in this matter and again apologize to anyone who is unable to communicate with users from countries that were banned".
So, they apologized to the US members??? How about those who they banned??? How 'bout violations of my rights? And this country dares to claim it's a country of freedom? Gimme a break. Let's start with the mere sticking to the human rights...then we'll talk about freedom.
Not long ago they posted the article on one of the news web sites about Matchdoctor having been re-launched. "Founded by Jason Tarlowe and Luke Kalish of Online Singles, LLC in 2000, Florida-based Matchdoctor.com began with just a few hundred members, but has grown exponentially since then, recently surpassing the one million member mark." Sure. I wonder if they know who gained that million. It's not a big secret (though honestly, I don't appreciate it much) that the US men aren't much against of dating a russian. Or a lady from Phillipines. Well, that's their choice and I can't blame them for that. It's a personal matter. I also agree that many of those so-called russian brides are not against of taking advantage of it either. But is it very wise of them to ban the whole country like Russian Federation (hope you understand, it's natural I speak for my country mostly) where only 1% (ONE PERCENT!) of the population uses internet at home? And consider the whole country to be a total scam? That's just way too funny. So, they gained that million and now they face the complaints of the users.
Fraud? What is a fraud? Is having thousands of foreign profiles in the site but actually NOT letting most of those users in cause of the ban a fraud? If they banned all those countries, they need to remove every single profile from those countries or it could be considered fraud? Using profiles of people that can't get in as a bait, isn't it a fraud? "The way people meet each other and date will change over time," said Jason Tarlowe, CEO of Online Singles, LLC. "The enhanced flexibility and convenience of the new Matchdoctor.com site puts us in the position to change right along with them." ..... Good Luck with that.
So, court? Why the hell not?
I would like to also add to the comments above. I find it totally amazing that the management of that site are ready to ban a whole nation(s) due to scamming and the need to 'protect' American citizens to this rather unusual and odd form of fraud, when it has come to my attention that one chatter in that site an American was able to con several ppl into believing she was not who she states she was in her own profile. Playing a game with their affections by posting fake pictures of herself on not one but two - and maybe more profiles. This is just one example of it occuring within the boundaries of the chatroom's main server's primary country, America. The person has been allowed back into chat on her own profile she claims contains the correct information and statistics pertaining to her - but how are we as mere chatters able to ascertain this is correct. I have nothing against the person specifically but the duplicity of the site management itself, in allowing a known fraudulent chatter back in to the site.
The example I give here is not just a one of ... it has happened numerous times with different ppl doing it and also from within the country, USA. It is however the first exampleo f how the site is willing to allow this person access - and i do believe they were forgiving of her due to her nationality.
I also was a member of the same site as the writer who wrote the article above and she is a dear friend, as to is her bf. I find it totally rediculous that due to her nationality she was blocked from access and labelled a spammer. Shes is far from being a spammer.
Personally I have my own issues that have been pu ton me by this site as well. I was banned and have had my IP blocked by MD due to the fact I upset the moderator of this room by my Australian larrikinism n cheekiness - very much attributed to the typical Australian persona most overseas ppl will encounter on meeting Australians. Funny to think I was banned for being myself - n not for being something I wasn't. The site management were not forgiving of me due to the fact I am Australian and they believe - as my sources from ppl who are in touch with MD administration - Australians also dont belong on a US dating site more particularly in their chat room area, though we are tolerated as long as we don't act as ourselves.
Regardless, my point here is that they are so willing to forgive the indescrestions of fraud by one of their own countries citizens than the joking attitude of someone whom is off shore.
Also adding to this unique favouritism another case exists of a known fellon, a US citizen, being also allowed to access the same site allowing ppl who are not aware of this situation (a term referred to as a newbie) to interact and develop a relationship with this person - a person who has been taken to court, and found guilty of, sentenced and served time for being ..an abuser to women.
How many other ppl in their own country who chat on that site have MD been aware of that are also in this same situation, abusers, child molesters, murderers, grand larsenist or even actually in prison at the time on a major sentence - who have set up fake profiles to hide this fact from other ppl in order to protect their true identities from the rest of the chatters? How many relationships has MD knowingly allowed with these known fellons and not protected the ppl who were unaware? MD choose not to disclaim the activities of the chatters in their chat site - regardless of whatever preamble they may post in the terms and conditions every member needs to read prior to accessing their server and chatrooms - due to the fact they utilise a moderator whose responsibilities it is too moderate chat and ensure chatters are not harmed by abusive or fraudulent ppl - yet at the same tim ethey allow these known cases to come into chat and cohabitate the same area as ppl unaware to this.
MD you need to look in your backyard b4 u quickly go and point accusatory fingers at other countries on a general scope - u need to be specific - and u need to be proactive to your members by protecting them from known cases of fraud with in your own country. Y0ou have a right an a responsibility to them. The chatters and other non chatters who utilise your site pay for a service - if free chatter and users subsequently benefit from this it is ust too bad - perhaps to turn a profit your entire site and many other dating sites should be completely accessed only by paid members, but in doing so for the moeny requested by these companies there needs to be responsibility shown by the management itself.
Enough of my early morning ramblings.
Cheers
ESD
15million members divided by 250 employees=60,000 dates per employee. Perhaps this is a perk of the job?
I'd suggest the guy with the lawsuit fight to get a job at Match.com. He can get income and a relationship all at the same time.
I'd suggest the defendent look in the mirror, and try to figure out why someone would give him such a lame excuse for breaking a date.
By the way, can Match.com employees join the site on thier own?
Match doesn't have 15 million paying members.
I bet their membership numbers are spiking around now.
Most of these new sites let women join for free because the men always outnumber the women so men end up footing the bill as usual. But generally after a month or so you will find that even the women stop going there because there are few fresh faces.
Match and Yahoo have never as far as I know sent me "fake" emails. I have received scam mails from China or Russia but that is a no brainer.
I would like to point out a deceptive practice that Match employs which many people are unaware of. I complained and got stuck in their email system. If you are a paying member and you write to someone who is a member but not a "paying" member, they can read your email. Sounds reasonable. But if they are not a "paying" member and you include your email address in the email message, Match removes it and substitutes @talkmatch.com. This is not explained in their policies and realistically means they are reading and censoring my private emails. I am sure a computer program does this but it is still deceptive.
Yahoo Personals does not employ this practice.
Somehow I think this lawsuit is a joke and probably should be directed to some of the newer sites who are trying to enter the market with deceptive practices. I tend to agree with the other response here that Match and Yahoo with millions of legit subscribers need to pay employees to go on "fake" dates.
Bottom line is if you decide to use any of the sites learn the ropes, buyer beware and if it looks to good to be true...
Good luck to all.
Isn't that too easy. If anybody brings up an allegation against a giant like Match that seriously damages its reputation, do you really believe that all Match would do would be to get the person to sign an avidavit? No way, it'd be more like suing the pants off that woman.
The case of her signing an avidavit just means she's been bribed with a few millions to keep here quiet. Scams will never end. Support the free sites: oasisoflove.com and put a stop to the greed.