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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.
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
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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...
I don't see anything wrong here. Someone committed fraud, they get sued. The difference between fraud and robbery is that a robber uses force, a fraudster uses persuasion, promising something without intent to deliver. No one ever says that muggers shouldn't be put in jail, so I don't understand what it is about fraud that people think should go unpunished.
I don't know why people think suits are a way to shift blame. Sure, there are lots of silly suits out there, suing a neighbor for a too loud lawnmower and things, but suing Yahoo and Match over astro-dating and date bait is, in my opinion, fair game. And if they are guilty, they should get a whopping big judgement against them.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
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
Women date YOU!!
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.
17-18 year old girls want to chat dirty with anyone
Are you sure about that girls part?
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
Well...we don't want to give the impression that all of the male geeks are serial killers.
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
Would we be able to moderate the profiles +1 Interesting or +1 Funny? If so, I could get behind this.
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
" I met my wife on Yahoo Personals."
I met your wife on there too.
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 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.