Slashdot Mirror
Online Daters Sue Matchmaking Web Sites for Fraud
BBCWatcher writes "According to Reuters, Match.com and Yahoo! are the subjects of separate class-action lawsuits from 'frustrated online daters.' Yahoo! Personals is accused of advertising fictitious profiles in order to make the service look more popular. In the Match.com case, 30-something professional Matthew Evans contends that Match.com sent a female employee as 'date bait,' hoping he'd tell others about the attractive women they could meet. 'The relationship went nowhere, according to his suit,' which claims Match.com violated the RICO Act."
So now you can sue when a girl doesn't like you?
If the allegations are correct, at least somebody will get screwed.
If they can afford to send employees out on dates they must be charging way too much.
Revenge of the Nerds
The toad can't burp - and for some reason can't fart either, so it swells up and eventually explodes. --Anonymous Coward
I signed up for a Mate1 account, and suddenly I'm getting emails every day from 18 year olds in all the states of the union who want to chat with me (I'm 34). But you have to pay to even look at mail sent to you. Obviously fraudulent.
No wonder he's single.
Match.com has millions of people on the service. In order for this to be a policy, what size work force would they need to create positive word of mouth? Further, would people say positive things if they dated someone for a time or two and then never heard from them again - or were strung along? Please. I'm not buying it. Sounds like someone pissed off that his fairy tale fantasy didn't come true.
Stupid anti-pimping laws
- Aetheral Research -
Now, that's a stretch. The Feds have a hard enough time nailing mobsters on that. Even if that woman was employed by Match, it would just doubtless be a case of "our service is so wonderful even our employees use it." I can't imagine any female wasting an evening with some dweeb just to keep him from quitting their service. This whole lawsuit doesn't pass the giggle test.
Maybe they should just offer the plaintiff an inflatable woman and tell him to go away.
I've tried a one month subscription to match.com and Yahoo personals.
Results weren't too bad, really. Met some friends.
Anyway, on both accounts, when the time was about to expire, I got a message from someone that was way above average in terms of looks, with a great, detailed profile. Its a good thing I'm already used to dealing with cons like this (AIM/yahoo messenger spam to be precise) and I put in the 'why did you cancel?' field that I don't like to be scammed.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
99% of the things you can pay for on the Internet are a scam if you don't get something tangible out of it that you can hold in your hands. And even then, there's things you can hold which are still a scam like drugs.
Don't spend what you can't afford to lose.
That being said though, I'm pissed off at Yahoo now, since I signed up for a month to try it out and was possibly scammed since someone had "messaged" me before I signed up, but never messaged after I contacted them back. Not even a note to blow me off, which I found strange, but figured she'd found someone else or my reply wasn't interesting. While I accepted that my shortlived subscription was just a Blind Date that was a bit expensive and failed, now I feel victimized too. There's no way to know if she was a Yahoo shill, or just some woman that didn't find me interesting. Either way it's not a happy outcome. There can't be too many happy online daters out there in cyberland today upon hearing this news.
Fortunately I've since been tipped off to the existence of 100% free sites like http://www.craigslist.com/ and http://www.plentyoffish.com/ which don't require you to pay. Plenty of Fish makes their money from Google advertising instead of scamming people with fake people.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
I have complaints from female friends that online dating sites will often retain the profiles despite them having removed their accounts (to inflate the number of purported users, I'd assume). On the other hand, many of the sites I've used (lavalife being the biggest, also one of the above accused) have enabled me to meet many 'real' people.
For all those seeking, I would offer advice. Don't look for love on the internet. Look for people of similar interest to hang around with, if things work out it might go further. If you go expecting something more however, you'll probably seem way too needy and throw off a negetive vibe.
found out about the alleged scam after the woman he dated confessed she was employed by Match
Is it possible that she was employed by Match.com and using the service herself? I don't know what their policy is on that sort of thing, but you would think that with 250 employees, at least one of them would use the service...
Writhe your naked ass to the mindless groove.
Though how would a class-action suit be handled in this case, considering things like that one person can easily have multiple profiles, and very few people must have been affected by this fraud.
That is one more reason, we need a clean, openmatch.com that matches freely (in both senses of the word) along with all the other benefits of open matching!
whatever....the frauds deserve to spend a night with godzilla.
If the allegations are true, do you really think she was doing it on her own time? Of course not! She was most likely getting paid. That could very well be why she was willing to do it.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Whilst if the company is found to be guilty they should be punished I really hope this guy doesn't get a big payout personally, there is something sickening about society when you can sue your way to multi-million $ retirement through class-action suits because something stupid happened to you in life. I mean in any other era of society it would be laughed off but now yesterdays jokes can make todays millionairs while other people have to work for a living. I Really think this idiot should've just reported the sites to whatever advertising regulatory agencies there are and got on with his life... but that couldn't give him a chance to retire now could it!
I'd be curious to know how many /.-ers use such services. Could we have one of those /. surveys setup for this?
== With enough Will Power, one could move mountains. With enough Brains, one would just leave them where they are ==
I belong to Match.com here in Los Angeles and I liken it to shooting fish in a barrel. If you have a decent tech job and do not have the inclination to hide heads in the freezer or stroke a rabbit's paw and call it "my precious" you will score.
The amount of decent looking people out there that just want someone that is 'normal' is dumbfounding. The majority of men in LA either have an ego that you need to help through a door or demands that even Stalin would shy away from. You also get your small bit of crazies, but I really enjoy those because it actually gives me a reason to blog.
I'm suprised Yahoo and Match are doing this. Its no secret that a lot of other big "adult" dating sites do this -- which I would have expected to land in legal trouble well before this. Not to mention the thousands of dating sites out there filled with fake profiles, or hundreds of foreign bride sites populated by flat out con artists (if you think losing $10 a month is a big deal, try getting conned out of thousands.) I know all of this, and I've never even used an online dating service or site once.
There is no doubt Yahoo and Match have the money, and thats were the lawsuits go. Great, another case of "here is your $15 settlement payment and one free month of service, while we collect our $5 million lawyer fee from the defendent."
In November 2002, I posted an ad on Match. One of the pictures was of me shooting a 1911 .45 caliber pistol at the local shooting range. In my state, it's a perfectly legal activity.
Match kept removing that picture. When I inquired why, they stated that having a firearm in a photo violated their terms of service; specifically the clause about "5(d)... provides instructional information about illegal activities such as making or buying illegal weapons." And something about advocating violence, which I was not.
I pointed out that there was nothing illegal about what I was doing. I asked them to cancel my membership and for a pro-rated refund. They refused. After pressing the issue, they came up with stupid excuses like "Your photo is a profile shot. Our terms require that both eyes be visible in the photo," which is a blatant lie. I never got my money back.
Regardless of one's feelings about gun control and private gun ownership, there was nothing about my photo that violated their terms of service. They refused to admit it. I can only conclude that whoever makes such decisions are a bunch of fucking bigots who hate law abiding gun owners, and let their personal feelings get in the way of a business decision.
Of course, they had no problems being business partners with AOL (at the time), which as part of AOL-Time Warner, distributes such movies as Lethal Weapon and The Matrix.
tried it for a month, basically was a money hogging rip that limited everything about contacting a potential partner. I would not reccomend eharmony or any dating site for anyone. These people are getting rich quick while everyone else stays lonely.. back to the bar for me.
I'm talking not about the contents of the article, but the point at which society stopped dealing with personal issues and problems and instead desperately started seeking someone to blame, and ultimately, to sue. Is there a definitive point in history where we went from dealing with something, to trying to extort 'comfort money' from those that we deem responsible?
People who sue in cases like this are trying to quantify something that can't be quantified, usually 'emotional damage'. Last time I checked, I couldn't produce a dollar amount for what I'm currently feeling, but as soon as someone with a lot of money seems to be responsible for my emotional state, I can pull a figure from the ether and claim that's the precise economical value of my pain.
I realise this isn't much to do with the article, but it's starting to get beyond a joke. As far as I know lawsuits were originally intended as a way to recoup actual, tangible losses. Not as the new get rich quick scam.
Disclaimer: I am British, but our country is getting just as bad as that of our neighbours to the west.
C17H21NO4
In Southern California, most of the women are inflatable.
At least parts of them are.
- learn to swim.
There's also sites like OkCupid.com, which is IMO the best in terms of fun features, and actual real profiles, unlike all other sites (no exceptions) where you have to pay, none of which I will name them here, since they don't deserve any advertising.
Then there's meeting sites like MeetUp where you can find groups of people with similar interests.
General rule: don't waste your time and money on any paid sites, no matter how good the reviews (most likely written by the site staff) make them look.
Ok, Ok, that was an easy one. Here's another that I heard of recently.
Luddate: Someone you are going out with who does not understand your obsession with technology.
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
If they really are paying women to go on "dates", then they might be looking at charges a bit more sensational than fraud!
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
A lot of women frown on the negative connotations that go with that sort of thing, so unless they have hookers on the payrole I would find it very doubtful that a woman would agree to doing something like that, especially if they are getting paid as it puts them right down there if their general social group finds out.
i'm going to just start suing people if people don't stop suing each other so much.
"Actually, I just work for ."
I'v heard plenty of people saying adultfriendfinder scamming people, they are the ones that should get sued, pity no good alternative exists, semed like a good idea :P
Wow, looks like there won't be anyone left to buy from this Christmas.
No doubt the fake profiles/fake chats are true, but how much would they have to pay someone to go out on a date vs the $20 monthly subscription? Not sure that it makes sense. Anyway online dating is good to get some 'skills' but it's not a good place to make a real connection. The women are either not the kind you would go for, or they are looking for Sir Lancelot. Maybe monster.com sent me on some fake interviews...
Hello Cruel World
Some of those singles in the class action suit should exchange phone numbers.
I met a great girl on Match, and it's the best relationship I've ever had. I had to go through a lot of "coffee dates" and meet a lot of non-compatible women to get there. I don't think Match puts up fake profiles, but a lot of users do falsify information on that site, but then again, those people would lie about themselves in the real world as well.
I think where people go wrong is that they expect way too much. They just look at the photos and only email the women who put up the hot bikini shots... then supidly expect a reply. Every other guy on the system emails the girl with hot bikini shot, so your chances are pretty slim. Stick to women who are more your speed and you'll do just fine.
If you go into it with lower expectations and take the time to actually read the profiles rather than look at the pictures, you can meet some very nice people. I know I have.
I have absolutely no problem with my girlfriend, which I met on Match.com. Not sure if anything has changed since this was about three years ago, but even then there were "false" profiles of girls that were too good to be true. They were pretty easy to spot with obvious professional quality pictures and ridiculous profiles like:
"I love to cook, clean, and hope to have a warm loving family with children"
or
"I'm really very quite, like to read, and have romantic nights at home and snuggle up with a man and a rented movie"
or the most obvious one
"I like to party, and I like sex, and lots of it"
These are all basically bait for paid sex chats and pornography sites, and usually don't reveal themselves until after 3 or 4 emails baiting you in. It used to happen on Usenet and other earlier message boards, so I managed to avoid them like the plague. These were not perpetrated by the service themselves, and the profiles were removed after a week or so. Same thing happens on MySpace with the profiles of half naked women in the groups. It would be kind of sad if these online matchmaking sites resorted to this kind of tactic since I, and a number of people I know, met their significant others on these sites, which usually works out much better than the girls I used to pick up in bars.
Pssychiactric firms, who have about the greatest ability to do harm, are darn near unsueable.
I dunno, but where I live there are plenty of free services like that (such as http://www.mheart.ru/ with quasi-real-time messaging. They're making money mostly on advertising and profile bumps (you get your profile first in the list by sending to them an SMS costing you about $1), and some additional services. Other than that, you don't pay a dime. And you don't really need to bump your profile - you can search for the ones who *you* like :-)
I saw this same thing happen on an episode of Gomer Pyle. Someone needs to spend alot more time watching Television.
I used a newspaper and phone based system to meet women, found the one for me after two dates, been married seven years. There's a lot more than the so-called "compatibility points" that people have in their theories. There's hard work, selflessness, willingness to compromise, see the possibilties in the other person, etc. They don't come pre-packaged. Looking for that online or offline is idiotic and the cause of most failed pairings.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
There are ads in there from many years ago, plus many duplicates. "alt.com" claims 3,466,253 members. "passion.com" claims 18,464,969 members, roughly 8% of the adult US population. Some of those have to be fake. (Statistically, most of those have to be fake.).
I still get spam from them based on an account I had with a now-defunct dating service back in 1998, sent to an e-mail address from the 1990s.
If the girl was a Match employee, then that would be more like an escort service almost, wouldn't it? How much does an escort cost? How much did he pay at the dating site? This guy shouldn't complain, he got A GREAT BARGAIN !!!
please excuse my apathy
I usually like my geek girls to actually have geek credentials enough to know that anecdotal evidence != statistical fact. There are FAR more geek guys than geek girls.
I had this story rejected on friday! Silly me, it was fresh then, and doesn't /. like their news a little more aged?
Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, which is why engineers sometimes smell really bad.
I work as a developper for a personal ads website (not one of the two mentioned); while I would seriously doubt one of our competitors hiring people to go out with their clients (we don't and I don't believe they would either), exagerating one's number of available profile is a definite possibility. However, there is a *big* difference between stretching the truth (say, saying there are over one million members, even though that includes those which have expired; after all, there have been that many accounts, expired or no; not a nice practice, but at least there is a basis of truth) and just creating fake accounts for other purposes than testing, as a small number of test accounts is fine and necessary, but nothing would justify several thousands of them unless it was to deceive customers.
idea for the /. crowd.
Why don't you single folks set up you OWN site:
dating.slashdot.org comes to mind. Imagine the fierce competition for any woman who dared post herself on it.
I'm not kidding about this either.
Well that and well broiled.
/SFL!
I'm socially inept. I'll admit that. But why do chicks hate it when I get a good gander at the chest when they're the ones wearing the skimpy cloth that barely covers them in the first place. I don't actually stare or follow but when sitting in a public place I make it my duty to check out the scene.
Frankly, if you don't want to be treated as a meatbag wear something half-way dignified.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I met my girlfriend on Match. She's very attractive, but more importantly, she's very smart and drop dead hilarious.
I've met a lot of other attractive women on Match as well. I'm sure those women could just go to bars and find guys, but they chose Match instead. Perhaps because a lot of guys who hit on women in bars tend to be jerks (at least that's what I've been told.) The ones I've met use Match as a screening service to weed out the jerks.
Dude! You can't call dupe for an article that was posted on a different site. If that were the case then everything on slashdot would be a dupe. Oh, wait...
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
Uncle RICO: What about your girlfriend? Kip: Well, things are getting pretty serious right now. I mean, we chat online for, like, two hours every day so I guess you could say things are gettin' pretty serious.
"To be is to do." --Socrates
"To do is to be." -- Aristotle
"Do-Be-Do-Be-Do..." --Sinatra
At bride.ru , with no picture and hardly nothing written on my profile, you should see the gorgious women writing to me!!! If I put Alan Cox's picture, you think I should expect the same amount of email / week, less or more?
ps: If I grew my hair, I'll look like him!
Now, that's a stretch. The Feds have a hard enough time nailing mobsters on that.
Maybe they came across it while seeing if Osama was looking for a date.
Table-ized A.I.
that this was posted for the /. community to get things rolling on the soon-to-be-announced slashdot user fueled class-action lawsuit to be filed as well.
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[insert funny
In Southern California, most of the women are inflatable.
:)
I.e., the bias that there is a lot of hot air around there applies
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Fight Spammers!
I actually met my current girlfriend on Yahoo. I have to say I am very pleased with the results. I am a divorced man with 2 kids. I don't want any more kids. I wanted a woman who can take care of herself because sometimes I am going to be distracted with my kids. I like rock music but prefer classic rock. I despise rap. I don't like to dance but I do like to go to concerts. I like to have my own space. I definately do not want to break another woman into marriage. Cause lets face it there is alot of learning going on in a marriage just not about each other but about the way marriage really works. It would be nice not go through that whole thing again.
So as you can see I have some pretty stringent requirements for a mate. Well along comes my girlfriend. Divorced with no kids and cannot have kids but likes kids. Likes Iron Maiden and Def Leppard.
Here previous husband liked anime and played video games so it no big surprise to her that I do and in fact likes to give me surprise games like Doom3 and Half-life 2 annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd a 40GB iPod.
SO thank you yahoo. I never would have met her without your service. Totally worth the money I spent and I would have spent more knowing the results.
"To Err is Human To Forgive is Divine neither of which is Marine Corp Policy"-My SNCOIC
I reported one site to the cops with specific proof. They did nothing. They are interested in handing out trumped up traffic tickets like speeding in a playground zone (5 miles over the limit) and not a kid in site anywhere! Yet report a white collar crime and they look the other way. I know people who have lost their homes through white collar fraud and still they look in the other direction. (wasn't a cheap home either - the guy lost a company worth over $1 million in the same fraud).
On that scale the fraud committed by these match sites is small on an individual basis but it is rather HUGE when looked at as a class action.
One site reports over 12,000 members in my province. There are fewer than a couple 100 who have any means of contacting anyone. So if they can't contact then why post a profile? Especially when the same pictures show up in Texas, Australia, and other places. Sometimes with the same profile and sometimes under a different profile.
Who does this? I imagine a large number of poor women possibly in 3rd world countries who are paid to set up profiles.
A couple weeks ago I was contacted by a woman from Match.com. This same woman contacted me about 4 months ago. The profile is nice. She is a teacher with a graduate degree in this city. I like that. The problem is her emails is written at a grade 9 level if that!!! This from a teacher with a graduate degree? I don't think so!
I recall the owner of Match.com also owns Sex.com. It would appear that when Sex.com was hijacked that the illusions of misjustice are somewhat exagerated. Here we have one thief stealing from another it would seem.
This is the sort of fraud that the cops are suppose to be spending their time on. Not nicking people driving through empty playground zones. This shows a horrible and cynical mid-direction of the policing function - that is - to the creation of a revenue stream at the expense of protecting the public.
But the issue at hand is this class action and I for one hope the settlment is in the billions!!! I also hope jail sentances come out of this.
------------
That being said. There actually are a few real people online. One of the great things about computer technology is its ability to sift through databases and allow people to meet one another. Unfortunately this has been perverted by a few greedy people. It is no wonder that the vast majority of women would never dream of putting up an on-line profile on most of these match sites.
One thing that is really interesting is that in my city there are about 50 active female profiles in www.matchdoctor.com. matchdoctor is a free site. Yet on the pay sites it is reported there are 1000's. So why such a spread?
Ans. Because there really are probably fewer than 100 active profiles at any one time and the rest are fraudulant.
The litigant was responding to the profile of a girl who shared a remarkable resemblance to his idol, Kate Moss. He sent her over two dozen messages in a 3 week span, expressing his undying love and admiration, to which she finally replied and agreed to meet him. To the litigant's dismay, upon meeting the subject-in-question, he found that not only was she _not_ Kate Moss, nor even her twin. The subject couldn't even fit into the front seat of his Yugo, and needed two safety belts to secure herself in the rear. Scarred emotionally, and physically (she tried to sit in his lap), the litigant is suing match.com for mental anguish and his $25 monthly fee...
Women might appreciate that as a filter for the regular dating sites.
Male seeking meaningful relationship with female with root access to beowulf cluster. Send picture of server racks.
seriously--can you really sue a dating service for your lack of ability to find a suitable mate? I mean, that's really what the suit is about. What person with any semblance to a sex life would have the time or energy to pursue a class action lawsuit?
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Were I the employee in question I would be the one sueing for sexual harrasment. Do they only hire good-looking women so they can pimp them out?
I can't comment on Match being the source themselves, but I recently pulled my profile after geting match lists of hundreds of identical profiles (Typically with no photos). I would also get form letter style emails all the time (Typically giving email addresses in introductory communications... a sure sign of fraud!). I can only beliewve that Matrch, Cupid, and all those other sites are rife with phishing scams and false profiles. It just ain't worth it.
On the other hand, I did meet some very cool people about a year ago through match.com. Perhaps this phishing problem is something recent that the industry is going to have to come to terms with. I'm now on eharmony and, though I have only met one person, I think their extensive profile helps prevent the kind of fraud that match and others are now in the middle of.
i dont think you should have to pay anyone to find someone, i mean there are other options, myspace, im, etc, i know not all dating services are bad, but they are making a profit off of you, its sad
My friends who are dating have tried Yahoo and some of the pay services, and they say Myspace works much better. It's free, and it's cool that it's kinda centered around music. For me at least, finding someone with similar taste in music is at least a good starting point.
;o)
I use Myspace to promote my band, and there are a ton of hot chicks that are on my band's friend list. But my girlfriend is the other member of my band, so it's kind of a catch 22.
Thank you.
Has anyone noticed the sheer amount of bots that these services run? You can tell they're automated responses, and if you DARE leave your email address in a message to any of these bots, your inbox is suddenly filled with THE EXACT SAME MESSAGE from a girl with apparently hundreds of different names and email addresses?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Match - great customer service, OK site.
Yahoo - NO customer service, not a great site but not bad.
Dates: Neither service provided a date over the six months I subscribed that I thought was worth it. Many freaks, fools, and poison women, what I call "Sick kittens". Perhaps I'm a harsh, but the fact is that I never met a woman on either service that turned out to be more than "No thanks, I'll pass." aside from one, and she's not a romantic interest, just friends. For the amount of money, it wasn't worth it in my opinion.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
30 year old virgin angry internet didnt get hime laid.
Hmm let's see.
:-)
Started off with IRC on Undernet and a few flirts. Met my first love on Playsite whom we have never exchange pictures with over the course of two years, which made meeting her at the airport a little difficult (meet the flight, estimate whom she might be based on age group/ethnicity etc). Met a few girls on Yahoo!, SocialNet, and Match.
Interestingly, those whom I've dated tended to match me on more than one site. For instance, one girl was at the top of my list across two e-mail newsletters. She later showed me her inbox where I was at #4 spot in both. That was a surreal experience, but we did have very fun times. Some of the girls I've met would be considered out of my league if I'd approached them offline. One flat out told me that I'd see her distinctly different from a block away and was right about that.
I guess my profile was sufficiently different not to match your typical fake ads.
With all this online dating experience, I find it ironic that eventually I found my wife offline.
Leonid S. Knyshov
Find me on Quora
Emotional damages usually amount to a few million dollars, certainly more than they're worth, but nothing compared to the punitive damages usually awarded alongside. The thing I don't get about punitive damages is that they are paid to the "victim". If they are supposed to punish the defendant for wrongdoing, why are they paid to the plaintiff? It'd probably be better to burn the money than to give it to the kind of worthless assholes who are usually involved in cases like this.
As a geeky female, if I had any interest in dating, then I'd find your idea interesting. I'd be able to find someone with similar interests, or at least someone who will put up with mine. I'd have way more guys to choose from than any other dating site, because I'd have way less competition. Out of all the people on slashdot, there must be some guys who I would want to date. On the other hand, I'm a geek. I don't know anything about dating. I might change my mind if I actually tried it.
I've done the match.com thing, and met a few good people out of the deal. However, their service is very deceiving. It costs nothing to create a profile, have it displayed, and *receive* messages. You must be a paid member, however, to *send* and *reply* to messages. The percentage of paid members to the overall number of profiles is very small. Thus, as a guy, you search thru and spend time sending out a handful of introductory messages, and get nothing back. Because everyone you sent to isn't a paid memeber, and they can't reply unless they pay the fee.
They should have a way to mask the un-paid member profiles so that you can at least have a chance of hearing back from someone. But that would deflate their "membership" claims... oh well...
I ended up just waiting until a girl emailed me, and then picking from those...
So, I think match.com is somewhat of a scam, just not from fake profiles put up by employees.
Ok... But, SlashDate.org has a much better ring to it. ;)
PlentyOfFish.com Brought Down By Massive Slashdotting
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
uses porn stars in its online ads?
:)
Do a search for crissy m
I'm with you on that. I can see the companies having their employees fraudulently entertain customers in an online fashion, but never getting to the date. If there was an actual date, it probably wasn't some organinzed plot. I mean you waste a lot of man (or woman) hours on one customer. It can't be economically productive. The same employee can, however, keep several potential customers interested by sending occasional messages. These don't take much of their precious **paid** time. The return on the investment is much better. On the other hand, I'm guessing actually paying an employee to get to the date stage is probably a money losing proposition.
I like my dinosaurs feathery, and my pterosaurs hairy (or is it pycnofibery?)
I like Gomer Pyle too. I saw the same episode.
Looks like we have something in common. Call me at 900-876-5309.
-Jenny
Off topic but oh well... Thanks to your comment I checked out the TW website, listened to the MP3s there and ordered the CD. I wanted to say thanks for drawing my attention to them.
"Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
This would be outstanding. I would love to see the clusterfuck that would ensue.
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[insert funny
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
Women date YOU!!
Not only the online dating sites and ads sound like scams.
Just think of the personals pages in the newspapers. This seems to be a worldwide phenomenon; at least some of the constantly very bad personal ads can be seen in Italy, UK, Finland....
"44 years old, fabulous looking, model body, great job with big income, high moral values, sportive, likes travelling, arts, extremely highly educated and well behaving female, is looking for a male of 40-60 years with equal details."
"great looking, age xx, female or male, with PhD, speaks fluently 4 languages, has lived abroad, likes to engage in intellectual discussions, wants to meet a male or female for serious relationship and family."
And so on. Seeing any of these ads on printed paper (and in the Internet too) makes me want to scream. If you are attractive, educated, smart, have so many interests that you tell you have, why do you have to place an ad to some newspaper? Men and women should be raining on you.
All those "great" ads sound like scam to me. If you are such a perfect person, there is no way you are still a single, given the fact there are so many lusers who are not single either. Or scamming offices --- people actually pay for offices for finding their soulmates.... offices in the real life. With their selected few hundred applicants they browse and select the criteria for selection... I can't decide if I see them as business, or as a scam. You can look for the people of the sex you are interested in, but you can't force love in that criteria. Maybe only the mail catalogs for exotic women (to marry) are actually more real; people know they will find someone else there, and who is most likely not how they had imagined their ideal 'other half' to be. I can't believe the descriptions in those catalogs would be as lame as in any of these normal newspaper dating ads are. These people are a scam.
Sometimes you have to wonder why any decent attractive woman in her right mind would ever create a profile on one of those things.
I am not a Match.com employee. In fact, I know nothing about the company.
But two and a half years ago, I met a girl on it. We chatted, dated, and now are engaged to be married. She is geeky enough to design web-sites and have her own blog. Yet she is also intelligent, funny, and - dare I say it - drop dead gorgeous.
Perhaps you should ask her why she signed up?
--- My dad's political betting
Coming from someone who can't even close an italic tag, methinks your post doesn't have the weight you think it does...
Mostly random stuff.
I won't self rate, if you wanted you could find my pics online and find for yourself, but most people wouldn't consider me unattractive. There are, however, many no-so-attractive specimens of either gender to be found in the world of online dating. The problem is that for many people internet dating is a last resort. Currently, it seems to be mostly populated by second-comers (30-40something, out of a relationship/marriage, don't know how to get back into the scene), as it's not quite hip with those younger.
For people like me, I'm not a bar person, there aren't many social places around here, and I'm just too bloody busy. I've had quite good success at meeting people online (and later offline) since I can trade emails etc at my own pace. Online also tends to give you a 'social distance' wherein you can learn if others are worth meeting in person (there are some crazy crazy people out there), and people tend to divulge more personal information, etc when they don't have to look you in the eye and be embarrassed.
My advice to those male geeks who find themselves girlfriendless... go find more female friends and try to not date them. If you find yourself able to talk with various women without becoming a drooling idiot, they'll probably improve your social skills and/or point you in the right direction. Heck, some of them might even have cute+interesting friends.
I didn't end up doing it, but yes, its definitely something that goes on. They didn't tell me which site(s) it was for during the interview, but i suppose I could find out. Our job was to make up fake profiles of very horny people and post then. We were supposed to chat with people as well since the site also had that function. Being interviewed for a job like that was one of the weirdest things I have ever done. One of the questions was "If your profile says that your a red head with big tits, and some guy sends you a message saying that he wants to eat you out, what do you say in reply? There were many people working there doing the same job, it was like a call centrer.
But why do chicks hate it when I get a good gander at the chest when they're the ones wearing the skimpy cloth that barely covers them in the first place.
It depends who is looking. When the right guy is looking it's perfectly ok to show some tit meat, but when the wrong guy oogles it's sexual harassing. One has to know when to look and when not...
now? I paid my $30.
I hate posts that only say "MOD PARENT". But I never have mod points when I want them.
I have first hand experience with the tremendous amount of fake accounts and fake contacts on Yahoo Personals.
I was contacted by "someone" with very attractive pictures, who never responded to my return inquiry. Imagine my surprise when the same "girl" (going by the pictures) contacted me under completely different profiles, on TWO additional later occasions, but never responded to my replies, I mean after all she approached me...hmm...
Pick 10 of the most attractive girls on Yahoo Personals. Chat with a few of them. Oh nice, some of them appear interested... hmm wait something doesn't seem right, oh duh they aren't real they're just bots running an eliza-ish script (and a pretty low quality one at that). Wow, and it didn't ask for my email address or direct me to a porn site, it just said "nice chatting with you I have to go". Hmm, I wonder what the motive behind that one is...
Or how about the one where you cancel your account and just in time for you to renew a super-hottie sends you a message, and then you never hear from her again? How about on more than one occasion (I used Yahoo on and off over a period of time).
I complained about these problems directly to Yahoo after I discovered them, and surprise!, no response.
People have actually thanked Yahoo on this forum. I had several successes through Yahoo Personals myself (although I met my current girlfriend in real life). Unfortunately, its sorta like a bunch of scammers collecting disaster donations and then only giving half the proceeds away and pocketing the rest. Helping an old lady across the street doesn't make up for pushing another one in front of a bus.
If it turns out that Yahoo as an organization is behind this, I truly hope that there is a gigantic judgement against them.
As for me i'll never trust a pay dating site again, and Yahoo as a whole has lost a lot of credibility for such a shoddy service whether they are involved in this fraud or not.
Well...we don't want to give the impression that all of the male geeks are serial killers.
It's a shame that these two in particular are being singled out (no pun intended). I used to use Match.com when they were still free and went out on a couple of dates.. and I swear they were not employees of Match.com.
Besides, I met my wife on Yahoo! Personals. And she definitely was not on the payroll. We've been happily married for 6 years. I'll be the first to admit, I'm not prime dating material, but come on.. if I can actually get dates on these services, then surely this guy can! I mean, seriously, what is his profile called? "Serial murderer seeks meek co-ed with no connections to community for brutal rape and dismemberment"?
Actually, I find this lawsuit interesting for a couple of reasons. First, I'm surprised it's taken so long to hear about such a thing. And second, it's interesting to note which companies are involved.
Like some other people here, I've "dabbled" in meeting women online ever since the "glory days" of the BBS in the 80's. Back in the BBS era, you just didn't find many women online, period. I ran my own fairly popular BBS though - and when the odd woman did call up and check it out, I found there was an extremely good chance she was going to be fairly compatible with me. I've never been into the dance club or bar scene, really. I always wanted a bit of a "geek girl" who would take it upon herself to learn a little about computers and technology - as opposed to the gals who claim an interest, but it's all based only on what previous boyfriends taught/told them. And she'd have to be above-average intelligence, with an interest in both reading and writing, and not shy away from the occasional good/heated debate. That would usually describe the type of female would would venture into the world of the BBS in the mid to late 80's. So I actually had a little bit of success way back then.
When the net became popular, I got into IRC chat and had quite a few dates (and even more new friends) from that. Sites like Match.com appeared somewhere in the middle of all that, but I never paid any attention to them. I couldn't see the need, when it was possible to meet people for free just by having online chat conversations. But instant messengers really took their toll on IRC, making the "city-based channels" on big networks like EFNet or Undernet sort of a "thing of the past". No longer did you have 40 or 50 locals congregating in a channel named after where you lived, all trying to organize a "get-together" for the weekened. Instead, people just put their closest friends in a "buddy list" and chatted with them one-on-one, giving up on IRC.
Considering my current situation (divorced and raising a 3 year old kid pretty much by myself) - traditional dating isn't much of an option for me these days. So I took another look at the idea of "online dating". It seems to me there are people raking in serious money on "dating sites" that are almost complete scams - such as anything "adult friend-finder" related. I would think THEY need to be sued long before Match.com. It seems they fill their sites with fake profiles and photos of women, just to reel in suckers who think the site is filled with women they'd really like to meet. Once they pay for their 6 month membersihp or whatever, they're stuck writing to people with non-existant email addresses, or who mysteriously keep ignoring them.
I tried Yahoo personals real briedly, because I supposedly got a "free month" with them as part of my SBC Yahoo Internet package. But I cancelled after the first week, due to an utter lack of interesting women in my city on there. They proceeded to bill me for the month anyway. (Gee, thanks Yahoo!)
I had a little bit of luck on Craigslist actually, where they let you post free personals. Only problem is, Craigslist seems to be unusually full of singles who act interested, correspond with people daily for a while, and then just vanish. (Both men and women complain about that on there quite a bit.) I think a lot of people just don't take it very seriously since it's free. They're just "fishing" for Mr. or Mrs. Perfect and if you're 80% of what they'd ideally like but not 100%, they "throw you back in the water" and try again.
I think okcupid.com is pretty cool too. But I haven't yet met a woman from it. (There's one gal who emailed me a couple times just to talk politics, since we had that in common... but no interest in actually meeting.) I'm just impressed with how it does the "compatibility scores" and testing, and offers so much for free. It seems like it's *got* to work for somebody.
The only service I actually paid anything for was Lavalife, and I'd say it was another waste of money.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You are socially inept.
What you are describing is rude and shows bad manners.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
If he was just a corporate shill, I don't think he'd have such an extensive history on Slashdot, right? Unless Match.com employs Slashdot readers, or somthing to that effect...
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
...several years ago. This was when it was free(is it pay now?). Yahoo's "women seeking men" section consisted of 99% fake ads, which were shills for porn sites. It got to the point where it wasn't worth checking anymore.
As for the others, well, it's a toss-up. But it isn't worth paying for, IMO. Myspace is getting overwhelmed by fake porn site accounts. ie a super-attractive looking(at least from the pictures) girl messages you, and instantly wants to switch to email. Guess what, it's for a porn site, and myspace's administration doesn't do jack shit about it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
But why do chicks hate it when I get a good gander at the chest when they're the ones wearing the skimpy cloth that barely covers them in the first place.
They want to show off their sexuality while testing your self control. They're more interested in guys that wont put out for them on the first date; that which takes more work to obtain is more desired.
You are going to impress the girls doing something you hate or are not good at, changing who you are, becoming a fake. Great advice Romeo.
My geek powers have landed me a couple of gorgeous ladies, some other peripheral activities have done the same.
To suggest to abandon one's life's interests in the slim hope of finding girlies is ludicrous.
Life does not work like that, some people that do nothing meet load of girls, some that do everything don't, there are no recipes, in that cotext yours is the worst.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I don't know what's more rediculous: People who are so desperate and silly to rely on such services, or the fact that such people are angry about their failure and willing to sue the companies! Seriously. If you need a web site to be able to hook you up witha date, then perhaps you need more serious help!
A lot of the pay sites encourage people to create profiles, then afterwards inform them that they have to pay in order to use the system. The result is a lot of profiles with people who cant read their e-mail and wont reply. Free sites like Plentyoffish.com or even better, OKCupid (designed by geeks, with an automated values matching system) are much better for meeting people. I just moved to Arizona, and Ive been trying to meet some folks in my area who arent a bit more intelligent and literary than average. Its not perfect, but Ive gotten replies from maybe one fourth to one fifth of my e-mails and three or four people in my area who are actually the type of geeks I like chatting with.
Craigslist has an even higher reply rate, though not a lot of posts and of course, no searching or filtering system which effectively diminishes the number of interesting people you can find in a given amount of time.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
I think that accidental online meetings that turn into relationships happen more than some people think. I tried online dating over a year ago for the first time, and didn't have much luck meeting anyone interesting. Then someone showed up at the message board I used most and we hit it off. Things worked out for over a year, but we aren't still together [online relationships fizzle if there's no chance of ever really meeting].
Online dating is no more risky than dating in the real world if you're cautious and remember that there are normal people out there too trying it instead of the usual bar scene that geeks tend to not dig much. You might even see someone on Slashdot that loves the same archaic text game, and is of the opposite sex. It doesn't hurt to strike up a conversation with them on their journal.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
I would like to site precedence in RICO vs Suave.
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
This would be outstanding. I would love to see the clusterfuck that would ensue.
Don't you mean "Beowulf Cluster Fuck?"
I am a 35yo married-father-of-2 geek. :-)
My wife is about non-geeky as one can be (she's a District Attorney).
The points of stress in our relationship are all around:
* Star Trek
* Passing cable thru the apartment
* spending too much on Internet connection
* spending too much on new hardware
* Linux installed in every computer I can put my hands on
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Provide a hooker for all you dateless geeks
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
A few years back I met someone who worked at one of the largest dating sites, and they mentioned that a lot of employees create false profiles in order to fulfill the requirements of people they want to bone.
Apparently some of them have a great deal of success.
It could definitely be considered a perk of the job.
What's *really* sick is that millions of Americans have been brainwashed into believing that holding companies to some degree of accountability is worse than the crimes those companies commit. In the absence of government fines and regulations, large lawsuits are the only way for consumers to get some redress. By limiting lawsuits, you limit accountability, and if the punishment is less than the profit they'll just write off a fine or settlement as a business expense. As evidenced by Microsoft having to pay a $500 million fine for their monopoly tactics when their monopoly tactics see them $10 billion a year.
in MHO, it works: award all of your hard-or-not-so-hard-earned money to the silly stupid victim is a real punishment; people don't want to do THAT. In fact, I think a lot of people would prefer a couple of years in the can instead. :-)
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd1105.gi fThis is the reason why
Thomas-
I've been on match.com for a couple years now. I met some very nice women there, including my current gf (who is both very cute, and very smart). It took a lot of emails, and a long time, before I had much success. However... they don't tell you this, but when you contact someone, they censor your emails to remove contact information, in an attempt to force everyone to subscribe. Now, I understand their motivations, but the unfortunate side-effect is that a lot of women don't subscribe to the service; they can send a "wink" but they can't send email. So many times, I'd receive a wink and send an introductory email but never get a reply. I'm sure some of them simply weren't interested, but I have no doubt that many simply couldn't respond and weren't willing to subscribe. It was perplexing, until I learned about the censor and worked around it.
I think I managed to avoid the mental cases by posting a profile which is perhaps more serious than the norm... plus, I have pretty good intuition about people.
When I first learned of the censorship, I was pretty angry about it... I wonder if there is a possible class-action lawsuit there? Though probably not, as I'm sure their legal team has checked it out.
Match.com may have lots of "members" - but many of them can't or won't respond unless you know about (and work around) the censor. Also, a lot of their "members" are not active; and when you take your profile down, they keep it for a year.
Match.com is useful for meeting people if you live in a big city. But if you're not in the middle of a major metropolitan area, then the pickin's might be slim (but then again, maybe you like them slim!).
Don't worry. http://www.okcupid.com/ have that covered. Free too.
Deleted
The online dating industry is notorious for planting fake profiles, but I would be genuinely surprised if Match.com is one of the offenders -- I have used match.com before, and the only fake profiles I have seen came from the users themselves.
The worst and most incredibly blantant offender that I'm aware of is FriendFinder and its affiliate sites (run by Andew Conru). I can't believe they haven't been shutdown long ago. Some of the things that company does is breathtaking in its audacity - such as taking profiles of women that post looking for a normal date, and repurpose them into women "looking for bondage and sex with strangers". Someone is going to end up getting hurt because of this; I don't know about you, but I'm of the view they should be shutdown before this happens.
The shady business practices of these guys is well documented - here's the first example that came up on Google.
Can you believe that somone would try to cheat? Man, what's the web coming too?
NoMorePoints.com
I met my wife on Match two and a half years ago. I definitely got a bunch of bullshit emails from girls that just wanted to give me head and brew beer for me. But if you sift through the bullshit there's real people there that you can connect with... like anywhere else in the world.
The guy who is suing has to be a douchebag but he'll be a rich douchebag. Hopefully some hottie takes him for all his money if he gets any. That would be poetic justice.
Who could possible not see the signs that your internet date is not who they say they are? I mean, who could possibly go wrong?
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
I was downloading some, uh, Linux iso's from Torrentreactor.net when they had banner ads for adultfriendfinder.com. Never saw a girl that was unattractive, more to the point there were far more hotties for my area that you'd find on Yahoo. My suspicions were confirmed when I noticed that multiple girls had the same nickname.
I was on match.com for 4 months. I met 5 girls and not a one night stand or blow off among them. Each lasted a few weeks and the last is my mate. Best $50 I ever spent.
Speaking as a geek, at $30 a month, even fake dates may provide enough entertainment and possibilities to be worth it :-)
Cause lets face it there is alot of learning going on in a marriage just not about each other but about the way marriage really works. It would be nice not go through that whole thing again.
Seeing as you appear to have got it wrong last time, has it not occurred to you that perhaps you have got some learning to do??
This is the fiancee talking, and thank you for the 'drop dead gorgeous' bit *gushes*.
I think there is a big misconception when it comes to internet dating, and why people, and more so, why women do it. I wrote a piece on it for my blog (you know, the type that any old 13-year-old is throwing together these days), which I feel best describes why I did it, and how I found it useful. Check it out here
Oh yes.. because its so hard to find booth babes for the thousands of floor shows being held every week? Hooters seems to be having a hell of a time finding girls to work for them too.
Fact is there are plenty of pretty women willing to make a living convincing men that they have a shot with them to sell a product.
Turn s60 photos into awesome videos with mScrapbook for all S60 3rd edition phones!
Do the Frustrated Online Daters work for the Department of Redundancy Department?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Same thing has happened to me. Ice breakers are free, and they can say yes, no, or blow off. So why after sending literally hundreds of friendly messages to girls, they don't even reply with a free icebreaker? And why when my membership expires then I finally get an icebreaker? Also another big issue is that many of the profiles are really email collector bots, who later spam you or send a link to their webcam pr0no page. They are typically the really hot girl with only 3 sentences saying generic but nice stuff and always online. Also be careful, I've tried another site, forget which one, it turned out that the other person had to be a paid member also just to read the message you sent. That brings your chances down a lot since I think a very low percent ever actually pay.
i dont think you should have to pay anyone to find someone, i mean there are other options, myspace, im, etc, i know not all dating services are bad, but they are making a profit off of you, its sad
What exactly do you think florists, restauraunts, jewelry stores, clubs, etc are doing?
There is great demand to find a spouse. Thus, there are businesses that attempt to assist you in this. I'm not sure why you find this attempt to make profit offensive. If they were selling you a false bill of goods, that might be a problem. I suspect that many dating-related services and product vendors probably overstate the effectiveness of their product, but I think that people can deal with that pretty well.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Don't look for love on the internet.
I would think that, if you were trying to meet someone, that you'd simply want to interact with people, period. On and off the Internet -- I don't see how it would make so much difference.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Ha ha, you're probably right - but, I met my wife on Match.com, and she is beautiful, intelligent, and funny. It was years ago, though (2001).
I've done the online dating thing on Spring Street networks (those are the personals advertised through the Onion and the SF Chronicle; they also have a sort of "central" site, nerve.com.)
People commenting here are right about a number of things. A large fraction of folks are "second time around" (I'm not.) There is a fraction of crazy people (none of whom I've met in person), and a fraction of insanely dull people (I mean, really, who would have thought you needed the internet to find the most boring person in the world.)
If you are outside a major urban area, the majority of people are either older divorcées (40-50) or have some major problem that prevents them getting dates in the real world. In the cities -- especially places like New York or San Francisco, major magnets -- huge numbers of very cool twenty and thirty somethings are on them. You're post-college, you've moved to the big cheese to make it big in your urban professional job, and suddenly you know nobody and nobody knows you. You can either date colleagues (ugh), or you can go online. A lot of grad students do it as well.
I'm not surprised the larger sites have had problems. It's hard to make money running a personals site. You have to attract women (and very few women pay anything to use them), and at the same time get the boys to cough up. Server costs, promotion, and maintenance add up very quickly. Springstreet was just sold to some other company which is actually incredibly sketchy, and they've had some issues (that seem to be clearing up, but it was bad for a month or so.)
Protect your liberties. Donate to the ACLU
you don't need a real woman, just a picture of one.
Submit and download your homegrown music on www.audiodropout.com
Match.com: If they won't screw you, we will!
For the perfect anti-Unix, write an OS that thinks it knows what you're doing better than you do and let it be wrong.
Would we be able to moderate the profiles +1 Interesting or +1 Funny? If so, I could get behind this.
Yes. And unless you got modded +3 or higher, most people would never even see your profile!
So where can I sign up to be a "bait date"?
I just got out of a relationship with a girl that was a part of the paid popular night life. Liquor promotions, Entertainment Sales, sensual massage, etc. etc..
You'd be quite surprised what a woman relevates to whoring. I find that the general consensus among young women is that as long as they aren't getting paid for "Happy endings", they're working a legitimate job. Same goes for strippers, they don't feel as if they're whores, they think they're giving an audience what they want to see; nothing more. In this day and age, socially acceptable jobs and hobbies have come a long way. Used to be pen and paper games such as Dungeons&Dragons was the work of the devil, now it's for the most part widely accepted and even a curiosity for most people. Walking around downtown with tops off (bikini's replacing) used to be something only gangsters and mobsters do, now it's commonplace on hot days. Socially acceptable has come a long way and women are very keen to this.
But on a more relative note, I myself use an online dating site and have found it to be quite worth my time. Have already met with several attractive and intelligent women, and am meeting with another tomorrow. Now here's something you'd never guess, alot of women are using sites such as Match.com to meet men for no strings attached sex. It varies between site to site, but women too these days are looking for NSA sex, and using the fact they're rarities to their advantage and boning only the most attractive guys they can find on the site. I've met a couple of these women and was surprised to see that they were actually quite attractive! Imagine the look on my face when they say "You ready to go fuck?"
Personally, I promptly turned around and walked away, there's no way to know how many diseases they have if they had been on a romp with every attractive guy on the site. As I said, socially acceptable has changed in this day and age, and women are very keen to that fact.
Of all the Universal Constants, here's one I know: Nice guys finish last
He dated a woman who wasn't what he expected or who presented herself to be someone she wasn't. The relationship went nowhere.
So basically, online dating has all the potential hazards of real dating? I'm shocked.
I'm not sure who inhabits it though. I have a friend who tried it a while ago. (Which is why I'm posting anon) She's smart (science PhD, college prof), funny, athletic and while not Naomi Campbell is at least a 6. You'd think there'd be a hundred guys who'd respond, but she said she'd had almost no luck- a few guys contacted her, but nobody she hit it off with.
If a geeky female can't get a date on a science dating site what's the world coming to?
I have thought it would be great to run an online dating service as a non-profit. You do not charge people for the service, but accept tax-deductable donations. I imagine people who have success with the site would give generously to help make the service available to others. Also, you wouldn't have to worry about the site having ulterior motives.
" I met my wife on Yahoo Personals."
I met your wife on there too.
If I wore a police uniform and some guy came up asking me for help could I say "Hey! Just because I'm dressed as a policeman doesn't mean I am one." No man, that's just confusing. So next time you decided to dress up like a whore, just remember that you may not be a whore, but you're wearing a whore's uniform.
(Paraphrased from a David Chappelle standup bit.)
My blog
...how many people here at slashdot go to these sites, and didn't get scammed.
It's just business.
Y'know, I've heard that line excuse some of the most foul, unacceptable behaviour, and I'm tired of it. No, it's not just business. Business is like any other interaction-- you treat people fairly, or you don't fucking treat them at all.
I see all kinds of posts lambasting frivolous lawsuits and the general decline of morals in America; often, those posts are from the same people who stand up for ill-behaved corporations and say inane things like, "It's just business."
Well, fuck them in the ass with a spinning roto-rooter.
Things done in the name of business represent some of the most immoral things in our culture today-- the purchasing of government by corporations, for instance. So, no, it's not just "business;" business should include treating each other with decency and ethics, just like all human interaction.
Now, where the hell did I put my lithium?
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I don't find it hard to believe at all. I am acquainted with several people with graduate degrees in education with similar language deficiencies. Apparently, the M.A. in educational fields isn't all that hard to come by.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
But don't forget the dupes!
Because it would be 99% filled with posts along the line of http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=168868&cid =14077315 below along with lots of thumbnails of goatse.
But don't forget the dupes!
Mmmm... I've always wanted to bang twins.
Be relentless!
I'm a gorgeous, athletic, and brilliant 20-year-old woman. I'll go out with slashdotters, but only subscribed slashdotters whose subscriptions have expired.
It's overrun by whores pitching webcam sites, porn and all sorts of crap. And they're SOOOOOO easy to spot. If a chick in her 20s says she loves getting anal from older bald guys, and she has a girlfriend who wants to join in, she's a whore.
"Looks good in a bikini" is not necesssarily the best criterion to use for selecting somebody to ask out. After all you're not going to spend your first date just ogling them, right?
They should be somebody you can relate to, and talk to. An "interesting profile" should be an ABSOLUTE REQUIREMENT for somebody you contact. Otherwise you are just trolling for a hot body - so go hire the best prostitute you can afford.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Certainly. Love off the internet is not any worse than perhaps looking for love in a bar. Chances are it won't happen... or something will happen but it won't be love. The problem is that people go searching for Mr/Mrs right,chat with somebody and think they know him/her, and get unrealistic expectations.
But then, people nowadays expect all sorts of instant gratification... the problem is that they think they can click a girlfriend as easy as bidding on ebay. If you have social issues in real life the internet will not necessarily solve those, though it may give you chances to know somebody better before you hit the meeting part.
Then someone showed up at the message board I used most and we hit it off. Things worked out for over a year, but we aren't still together [online relationships fizzle if there's no chance of ever really meeting].
That's because as much as we like to gloss it up, dating is ultimately about SEX. That's why we do it. For some that may mean "hold hands now, sex after we get married", but physical proximity or at least the possibility of it is a fundamantal need for human romance. We are still apes at heart no matter how fancy our computer networks get.
Online dating services at least allow one to narrow the pool to LOCAL prospects, which is why they should be superior to just meeting people on interest-based forums etc.
Freedom: "I won't!"
I don't work for Match, never did. I was just another guy looking but without much success. After a while I began to wonder if anyone knew how to do it better. So I created a shill.
Match occasionally offers free trial subscriptions. I used one of those. I went looking for photos on the net, stole one from a model who had her portfolio online, wrote a profile, and waited. I got lots of replies. I got to see what my competition was doing.
So, yes, there are women on Match who seem too good to be true, and who won't answer you because they don't really exist. But Match might not be responsible for any of them. I know that they aren't responsible for at least one, because I am.
BTW, I'm not a great fan of Match. Indeed, I despise them. I got to see how they discriminate against guys. When my male profile had tech problems, it took forever to get them fixed. And any minor transgression of their rules brought instant anonymous rebuke, for which there was no appeal.
But my female shill was treated like a princess. Tech questions were answered instantly. She could break rules and was forgiven. ( most notable was when I forgot to remove the copyright notice on her photo, which was an explicit violation of rules, and they posted it anyway )
In spite of all this, I perservered, and learned how to write a good reply from reading my duped competitors' replies to my shill. You can learn a lot that way. When I began writing better replies, my success rate trippled.
By chance I finally met the woman of my dreams. We are engaged to be married next summer.
PS: If any of you readers are ones I duped, I appologize. Really.
There is another website called http://www.place4friends.com/ , I figured out that they were sending me false contact emails and they EVEN ADMITTED that the emails they sent were false. However they refused to return my money.
The sad part is that there was no contact information, state/country of operative laws and so on. So I did not even know whom to file report to. Ultimately I was able to get half the money back, but I still keep getting tons of emails from girls interested in me.
I suggest you stay away from place4friends.com
I've dabbled with online dating since there was an "online". My first experience was on The Source when I started chatting with a customer service rep and we developed a rapport online. She eventually flew down to stay with me for a week, and later I went up and stayed with her in Virginia. We ended up being friends for many years.
Since that time, I've tried most of the online services, in between dating women that I met out in public or through friends. I've had plenty of ups and downs. I even turned one experience into a published story on the "classified dating" scene when I set up an experiment, taking out five different classified ads, written in five different styles, and analyzed the results. It was quite amusing. I had a funny ad, a serious ad, a romantic ad, a sexy ad, etc., and I kept a diary and a spreadsheet of the women I met and my experiences. If you think men are "players", let me tell you I ran into plenty of women who "played" men. A common thing I discovered is how much women BS guys virtually. I was contacted by several women who responded to several of my ads at the same time, not knowing I was the same person, telling me, "your ad was the only one I responded to." Some women I met turned into really weird stalkers, while others were obviously looking for free meals and guys to pay for stuff and entertain them and had no intention of getting involved. Later when I started dabbling with match.com, yahoo.com, lavalife, matchmaker.com, salon personals, and others, I discovered that the same M.O. applies. I know some female friends who actively do the online stuff just to get a chance to go out to eat more often without paying.
That's not to say I didn't have some positive experiences. I've met many great women through the online services, and many who are still great friends. I had a few serious relationships, but by far, the women I met online were generally much less emotionally stable than women in real life. This is probably due to the ease with which someone can pretend to be someone they're not online. But you find out soon enough. It's still very eye-opening to find out how totally psycho some of these women are. (I've heard similar stories from my female friends about men they've met too.)
In the last 4-5 years I started to notice a pattern of diminishing returns from the online dating services. When sites like match.com initially were discovered by the mainstream, the quality of people online was much higher than it is now. I would not get involved in these services now, even just for fun because there's a lot more deception going on than there used to be. Yahoo is probably the worst in terms of bogus solicitations, but there are new breeds of sites that are inherently deceptive by their very design, such as eHarmony.com, which I think is probably one of the worst offenders, comparing their process to that of an impersonal "mate shopping spree" and structuring the process so there's no way you can get to know the other person (or even see what they look like!) without paying lots of money.
After many years, I decided I would not participate in these mediums any more. Most of my friends also have lost faith. If there's one thing that the online sites teach you, it's that you're better off looking in real life. The only exception to this is if you're very antisocial -- in which case you'll find a plethora of equally antisocial people to mingle with, but you might not like the results. Usually we seek out people that compliment what we have to offer and a lot of the terminally insecure online personalities are looking for people to "save" them. Two needy people end up as a recipe for disaster. Take a cruise, go do something you like doing and look for people that are out there. Online is great for meeting new friends and stuff, but don't take it seriously, and don't believe what you read.
I think the keyword is "fake". Why would Match.com, a successful and growing company (I know people who've had good luck with them), resort to such an obvious tactic that's doomed to fail? I suppose it's possible that some overly enthusiastic employee did some "rogue" actions to maintain a membership quota but even that is a stretch.
It's much more plausible to assume that this guy Matthew Evans is a loser who is trying to make a quick buck. That happens every day in America. Ya gotta feel sorry for him, though. How many women are going to feel secure around a guy who resorts to lawsuits when he gets stood up? And thanks to Google, every woman in the world will be able to get the story on him.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
I've got this Playboy Bunny convinced I'm an Astronaut!
c.f.: Dilbert
Imagine getting rated "Troll"! ;)
They started fooling me so I instead switched to Yahoo Groups, I found lot of girls for free.
i'm a bit of a cam perv and several of the cam sites i joined (for free) flooded me with cute girls ("wanna have fun? upgrade now to enable live contact and chat with me!) but of course i have to pay to contact them...and they are never on cam.
whatever happened to caveat emptor? unless it's a highly rated long-term company, or high-feedback ebayer, the net is about as honest as your average crackwhore.
Whats the likely hood one of 250 employies would go on false date with one of 15 million customers? This does not make sense on any level... I bet this guy is just frustrated that he isn't successful with women and so figures it must be someone else's fault but his own.
So it isn't all that hard to meet a headcase or two and decide all women looking online are whackjobs.
I'm confused.....you're single and that isn't what you want?
My best friend met his wife through match.com back in late 2000, both living in the San Francisco Bay Area. They got married in 2002. He had dated around 3 or 4 people through various sites (including match.com) before meeting her, she had dated around the same number of people before finding him. Interestingly enough, she had cancelled her account, thinking it wasn't going to do any good. But later reactivated it and found his profile.... She was the one who emailed first. :-)
Yes, they both work in the computer industry, though I wouldn't call them geeks (she's a trainer & consultant for a small software company, he's an IT director). They were just two professionals that had to work long hours, one of them travelled a lot, and so it was hard to meet people.
-Stu
I believe (in other words, I think the following is true, but I'm not certain) that RICO pays triple damages, and applies to basicallly any conspiracy case involving a corporation. It was intended for use with mobsters, but it was written with a lot of latitude ... IANAL.
here.
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
I ran into an MA-social worker that didn't understand what "demonstrative" meant. Unfortunately I was drunk at the time and couldn't adequately explain it. So I hugged her.
Well first they'd have to start dressing better... obviously...
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=168629
Maybe you should recommend the hijab next time? Well well, you little closet muslim.
www.uglysingles.com
thats my domain and there's nothing interesting up there.. and the random stuff ain't random..
Though i wonder if i setup a dating website, would i still need to hire employee that pretend they are ugly!
God is real unless declared as int
Sign up for OKCupid. It's free, and it's a pretty interesting site. Back when I was single, I used it. I met a couple people on it. I met more on match.com though, and they were more attractive. :)
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Actually, I don't think I said "a lot" about a lack of attractive subscribers on these services. I merely mentioned that Lavalife seemed to have an exceptionally large number of less-than-attractive women using it, at least from my part of the country. In general, there are plenty of reasons why a woman might turn to online dating besides being "ugly, fat or mean". Having kids is a big one. Don't forget that 99% of the time, the women don't pay a thing to use online dating services (or even telephone-based dating services). Just like "ladies night" at the bars, women usually get access for free. Paid dating services are well aware that it's primarily the guys who would feel a need to pay for them.
Overall, I'd say that *legitimate* dating services offer a pretty similar cross-section to the "singles" you'd meet anywhere else in public. You've got your people only looking for sex, your pathetic losers who can't ever get a date because their social skills are severely lacking, your people who actually do want a long-term relationship, and pretty normal people just seeking someone to take out to dinner and a movie once in a while. The fraudulent services, by contrast, are filled with boiler-plate ads that sound like they all describe nearly perfect dates any guy would dream of meeting, coupled with beautiful photos.
Actually, there used to be an OSDN dating site. I think it was one of those weird, cross license things where they shared their personals with a bunch of other sites. Anyway, considering how shortly lived it was, I guess the obvious flaws in the idea outweighed the benefits.
I got an online diary (blog, I guess) at BloopDiary.com in January of 2003. After having "met" and talked to a certain girl on there for a few months, that fall we talked on the phone. Long story short, she now lives in my town (In Missouri; she's from Pennsylvania), we've been together for over 2 years, engaged for more than 1, and will be getting married next December. The important thing is to go online looking for FRIENDS, not dates. Make the right friends, and go from there.
There is a section in RICO allowing for civil complaints resulting from personal injury or harm due to a RICO violation. Though it is a stretch the payoff potential is treble damages plus lawyer's fees being awarded to the complainant.
I had a IT professor back in the end on 80's which had set up a minitel (*) chat room to "round the end of the month". The way he did it , was to hire some women, mostly 50+ "housewife", and then they chat under many personality. So sure he did have to pay them, and pay for his own connection, BUT since they chat with a lot of men and had "notice" about those, he did make some money. Not enough to be rich but enough for himself to live comfortably. He had to drop it later when traffic got low due to internet pick-up.
(*) french telephon network with limited terminal capability
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Technically speaking, if you fail to procreate before you die because you wasted your whole fertile lifespan trying to date what are obviously pornobots online, you've excluded yourself from the gene pool through your own stupidity, right? I'm thinking of submitting this...
Yeah, but imagine dating the kind of people that frequent Slashdot?
:( My butt still hurts...
"Re: Date tonight (Score: 2, Informative)
Oh my gawd, DO NOT date this person, date turned out to be a Goatse link
Other than that, nice date, pleasant chatting over good dinner."
"Re: Date tonight (Score: 1)
Hi, my name is tubgurl, I am intrigued by the report and I would like to arrainge a date..."
What defines the success of a dating site? If it is the number of users, then how many of the are the same lasting and if so then the output of relationsships must be at a low, and should be defined as a socialising/sex site than a dating site with purpose of getting a relationship.
He might be wrong if the girl was just seeking attention. Dating sites are a venue of choice for women who just want attention, but arn't tech savvy or honest enough to be a cam whore. If you wanted to design a really effective online dating site, you'd simply make one where women had to initiate communication. It's got lots of advantages for the girls, as it locks guys into fewer choice.. and it helps ensure that the girls are serious for the guys. OTOH, Why bother making a better online dating site? Just get out more.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
You apply logic to something which is basically illogical, that's where you go wrong. Women test men when meeting and getting to know them, most of the times not as a plan but as part of their instinct. They offer temptation and appreciate a man who shows some selfcontrol. Have you ever dated a woman whom you told that for example you go to the gym or watch your favourite show on a certain evening, say tuesday. Then she asks you to go out on exactly that day, not wednesday but on your day, and acts as like your interests are unimportant. So you're a geek and do what she wants, only to notice she acts disappointed and seems to have lost interest. The thing is, sometimes women ask you something and expect you to refuse and say 'no'. That's just a test that tells them whether you're a strong person, or a weak person who does whatever she wants. Such a man is not a challenge for a woman.
Maybe you should read some David DeAngelo stuff to get a better insight in how applying simple male/female psychology can help you tremendously.
In Soviet Russia, girl screws YOU!!!
I found someone on match.com who I ended up marrying a year later. I did receive a few messages from various people looking for dates, although none that I had actually sent messages to (my wife signed up just so she could send me a message).
One of the biggest problems people have on these sites is that their photos suck, and I mean really suck. For god's sake, use a good photo of yourself, not some party-picture candid shot with your ex's arm still in the picture around your waist.
We got my sister-in-law to try lavalife, and jeez was she picky, just based on the tiny thumbnail photos. So guys, do yourself a favor and use a good picture. And just because a girl doesn't have a picture doesn't mean she's not hot - quite often the opposite. The hot girls get so many emails they often have to remove their pictures just to make it manageable.
You post on slashdot and you wanna talk about a girl not liking you? Give up, you don't even know what a girl looks like.
----
I don't know what booth babes or Hooters hostesses you meet, but all the ones I meet are generally friendly and normal. The idea that any attractive girl who's friendly and normal is trying to convince you that you have a shot with them comes from men, I'm afraid.
I met my wife on match as well. At times, it can be very frustrating - you see people you think you'd be a natural match for, and write them a nice note introducing yourself. And get no reply. It took me about 18 months to meet my wife (and she wrote to me first!). I think it's a great way to meet people, see if there's mutual interest, get to know them a bit via e-mail/phone first, etc, etc. I don't believe I ever got any bogus profiles/emails. (*disclaimer* - I now own stock in match.com)
Most of the time the best looking women are not real. Usually you get an email to go to their website which nude photos, which is just dating site spam. And just yesterday I was chatting with a woman with an ad and I swear it was an AI system. Most replies were "ah ok" or were keyed on a word I used. When I would ask more complex questions I did not get any response.
It is either spammers or Match.com and Yahoo Personals trying to draw more attention. Ultimately it drives you back to the bars when I can get the "ah ok" response in person.
Brennan Stehling - http://brennan.offwhite.net/blog/
If they employ females to entice males into keeping their subscriptions then...
1) their employess are hot
2) they put out, many on the first date
I got so much action from that site it was regoddamndiculous. The formula was boneheaded simple: be nice, and *only* respond to profiles with attractive pics, and work out just a little bit. A hair cut, laundered and pressed clothes, and wear nice shoes (hell that alone will get you lots of play) go a long way on your first meeting. No "dates" when you initially meet them, no buying them dinner. Coffee or drinks will do. Keep it short. If she gives you a hard on call her back. If not move on. No nerves: remember they are there for the same reason you are.
Follow those simple rules and I guarantee you will be laid three times by Xmas. Will 4 out of 5 meetings fail? Yes. So what.
And no, *I* do not work for Match.com.
PS wear a condom. Every. Single. Time.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As a 24 year old man in a steady relationship with a 36 year old woman just let me say: preach it, brother!
Yes, and how many would spend hours with some guy for a night for a cheap enough salary to make it cost effective? Remember that that particular guy is only worth ~$30/mo. How many dates? And how many people would have to be on the payroll? Match has now many million users?
It wasn't the first ad I'd posted, nor the first I'd posted on Craigslist. I have had mixed success finding potential boyfriends online. A *lot* of guys are just looking for a quick fuck. It's a bit daunting, as a female, to weed these guys out and find the ones who are really looking for a relationship (because let me tell ya, the guys looking for a quick fuck know they have to say they're looking for a relationship to be taken seriously).
Anyway, I posted a long rambling ad, talking about myself and my interests, being totally up-front about my bipolarity and my meds, etc. I even talked about my kid which for some is a deal-breaker. And I met a great geek guy, who is also bipolar. We have been together about 4 months and things are just peachy.
Some of us crazy chicks are actually all right. And we need love too, ya know.
Where I can be ignored by attractive women *worldwide*, rather than just being ignored by them locally.
I've tried five services, and every one of them was remarkable for the absolute lack of response I got from trying to talk to the women that were there. With Pic, without Pic, whatever.
I still kinda like OKcupid.com, but at least it's free. I actually paid two services that did absolutely nothing.
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
Would those be 512, 1024, or 4196 clusters? ;-)