Online Daters Sue Matchmaking Web Sites for Fraud 548
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."
Wait (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wait (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wait (Score:3, Funny)
The Real Story (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wait (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wait (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wait (Score:4, Funny)
Re:DUPE! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Wait (Score:5, Insightful)
Not nearly as lucky as an 18 year old bloke would be to get a 35 year old woman.
Ironic! (Score:5, Funny)
Aspect are true (Score:3, Informative)
New campaign slogan (Score:3, Funny)
Doesn't make sense (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Doesn't make sense (Score:4, Interesting)
I know from personal (and other friends' experiences) that just as a membership is about to expire, a "perfect" woman repsonds to your ad (after nothing for the entire subscription) - in a way that does not appear to be a bot. Of course, you can't respsond until you pay for another subscription. Then you never hear from hear from her again.
Re:Doesn't make sense (Score:3, Funny)
We should call it (Score:5, Funny)
Re:We should call it (Score:5, Informative)
I have, er, my friend has noticed that whenevr his subsciption was about to expire he would suddenly get a ton of "winks" or "flirts" that you have to subscibe to reply to. Could be a coincidence
If you are using these sites, my "friend" would give this advice- when you see a 20 y/o female who is seeking men 18-45 they are usually a fake profile (Not from the provider necessarily, but these "women" usually reply back with a link to their paysite.)
The worst offenders, not that I would know, are the companies that advertise on porn sites. They have nude pics come up of women in the "next town over" or your town (you get these if they know your ip and can tell where you are) and you just know that there aren't 50 nubile young 18-25 y/o women in these towns looking for no strings sex on the net.
Re:We should call it (Score:4, Insightful)
"Adult Friend Finder" -- they must do an IP lookup to target the ads, so I, living in Hong Kong, see all these ads with the captions "Hot woman in Beijing/Shanghai/Urumqi wants to meet you". Strangely, all these Chinese women are skanky blondes (usually depicted naked with their legs spread).
Obviously Fraudulent (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Obviously Fraudulent (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Obviously Fraudulent (Score:5, Funny)
Are you sure about that girls part?
Re:Obviously Fraudulent (Score:4, Informative)
Bash.org: Something for every occasion (Score:3, Funny)
Plausible? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Plausible? (Score:2, Insightful)
You calling my girlfriend ugly? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:You calling my girlfriend ugly? (Score:4, Funny)
This happens every time Slashdot has a post on this topic, someone posts articulartly saying how much success they've had with the service, the timing is very convenient.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:You calling my girlfriend ugly? (Score:5, Funny)
I dunno about that.
My ex had a bachelor's degree, but she was still a headcase.
My sister is a highschool dropout, and she's completely batshit-fucking-loco.
Don't see how the degree makes a difference.
Re:You calling my girlfriend ugly? (Score:5, Funny)
-h-
yah, me too (Score:5, Funny)
I met your wife on there too.
Re:You calling my girlfriend ugly? (Score:5, Interesting)
However, my adventures in online dating were not short, and not without lots of stories to tell. Even after dating my current gf for two years, I still manage to surprise her sometimes with stories of bad dates that I guess I hadn't told her before.
I mainly used 3 services: Yahoo personals, Matchmaker.com, and Match.com. Yahoo was the absolute worst. It had a lot of people, but at least half of the women there were fake. After reading about these lawsuits, I'm really hoping that Yahoo gets screwed over because they were the most blatant, in that, even if they weren't the ones putting up all the fake ads, they certainly had to know about them, and didn't do nearly enough to curtail them.
Matchmaker.com was actually pretty decent, and was good in that it had a really long questionnaire that, while it was a pain to fill out, was really good for learning about other people. Other dating sites just had a text box saying "write about yourself here:", which isn't very good if you're not the type who's good about writing about oneself. The problem with Matchmaker was that they just didn't have many women on it, so it was easy to exhaust the supply in short order.
Match.com's main advantage was size: it had lots of people, and consequently a decent number of women. It also didn't have all the fake people Yahoo had (though the employees posing as customers I can't speak to, as I never encountered that to my knowledge). Otherwise, it was pretty mediocre as far as how the site was set up.
Interestingly, I had been doing the online dating thing for about two years when I met my current g/f, and I was so sick of it that I was about to cancel my memberships and take a vacation from it. I had a lot of email exchanges and a lot of dates (and I usually don't date very much; women tell me I'm very attractive, but I'm just not very social, and I really hate bars and the other primary ways 20-something people seem to use to meet, plus I'm an engineer so of course there's no decent women in my workplace), but many women didn't look like their photos, many proved themselves to be freaks even before meeting in person, and many would just disappear after the first date.
Of course, my experiences date from 2001-2003, so maybe things are a little different now, but it doesn't sound like it from what I'm reading here. My feeling is that online dating can be rather treacherous, but if you're not the type who can or wants to meet dates in bars or at work, there might not be many alternatives.
Re:You calling my girlfriend ugly? (Score:3, Interesting)
FWIW, I have a very attractive, smart, nice female coworker who met her fiance through Match.com.
Re:You calling my girlfriend ugly? (Score:5, Interesting)
"I have paid up for INSERT SITE HERE and have written to hundreds of thousands of girls and none of them get back to me. Funnily enough two days after my subscription expiring this really great looking girl was interested in meeting, but more importantly, she's very smart and has a good sense of humour . After some hesitation I think maybe this is the girl for me, so I sign up again. Unfortunately I must have waited too long, since her profile is no longer active."
Re:You calling my girlfriend ugly? (Score:5, Insightful)
On a serious note, even the most unattractive person has a couple photos where the lighting is just right, their outfit flatters them and they look pretty good. So even with a real pic, yuo still may end up with a sea monkey.
Re:You calling my girlfriend ugly? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:i know exactly what you mean (Score:4, Interesting)
I asked about this on a women's forum when they were discussing online dating. Most of them said that they felt that saying 'no' was unfriendly and that not replying would send the same message, only in a more friendly way. Guys feel it the opposite way of course, rejection is disappointing, but shows that she's friendly, being ignored totally is more disappointing and considered rude. So men and women just see this differently.
One thing I noticed about online dating that people don't apply their knowledge or intelligence. If a geek is programming/repairing his PC/solving some problem, they try different things, notice that it's not working, change something until it works, and then they analyze what change made it work.
However when dating (and that's also what you write), they just try one thing of which they have determined in advance that it will work, try the same thing hundreds of times, and then give up saying "this sucks/this site sucks/women suck". They convince themselves that the copy/paste message they send everyone is "friendly" while to women it probably comes across as bland/too careful/too weak/uninteresting. If guys applied their skills to dating they'd send all kinds of messages, short, long, rude, friendly, demanding, funny, etc. and then look what gives the best results.
Re:i know exactly what you mean (Score:3, Informative)
She said (Score:3, Informative)
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 [coolnina97.com]
Re:Plausible? (Score:5, Informative)
And not all people go on dates with the sole purpose of trying to locate their "soulmate". A lot of people, esp. young professionals who are very focused on their career, are simply looking for someone to have a good time with. e.g., the dates are about having fun, not interviewing perspective spouses.
Also... Match.com is owned by Ticketbastard [ticketmaster.com]--I wouldn't put anything past them.
Re:Plausible? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Plausible? (Score:3, Interesting)
I used to manage for A&F and this, along with how many "A" brand reps and managers you recruit, is how you get promoted within that company.
It's totally believeable that a dating company wo
Re:Plausible? (Score:3, Interesting)
I didn't even have $36 extra dollars in my pocket and they didn't take plastic or have an ATM. Keep in mind that everything I drank all night was $3. The bar tender and the bouncer start getting in my face and sweating me to come up with the money. The people I came with (~15 people) came over to see what w
Re:Plausible? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Plausible? (Score:3, Funny)
well, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for ticketmaster people to go on dates for money, I suppose...
Re:Plausible? (Score:3, Insightful)
The outbreaks of these articles were the first that I'd heard of this practice. It was not a rumor around the office, much less "common knowledge".
In actual fact, the entire employee base of the umbrella corporation (InterActive Corp) was offered a free 6-month subscription to match.com as part of our inter-company perks. So, which company would likely have a higher represent
Re:Plausible? (Score:3, Interesting)
Violation of RICO? What case?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe they should just offer the plaintiff an inflatable woman and tell him to go away.
Re:Violation of RICO? What case?? (Score:2)
Re:Violation of RICO? What case?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Violation of RICO? What case?? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
As long as it isn't happy endings.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Violation of RICO? What case?? (Score:2)
In Southern California, most of the women are inflatable.
At least parts of them are.
Re:Violation of RICO? What case?? (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:Violation of RICO? What case?? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.)
*raises hand* (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Myspace (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Myspace (Score:3, Interesting)
Um, why not use maths to find someone? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:*raises hand* (Score:3, Insightful)
It's just false advertising, and that gets you in trouble, emotions or no.
Lamest fucking excuse (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Old saying holds true (Score:5, Insightful)
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/ [craigslist.com] and http://www.plentyoffish.com/ [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.
Free sites (Score:3, Interesting)
Then there's meeting sites like MeetUp [meetup.com] 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.
Re:Free sites (Score:3, Interesting)
PlentyOfFish I've had good experiences with. I only ever recieved 1 spam message, and that person's account was removed PDQ. I've been on dat
Complaints from female friends (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Complaints from female friends (Score:3, Interesting)
You're right. However, if you use it as a way of getting dates with down to Earth people that aren't your typical bar flies, it's a great tool. I met one girl on Yahoo Personals back in early 99 and we had a four and a half year relationship. I met a girl in December of 2003 and we lasted over a year and a half. Those two girls were unlike any I have ever met and chances are, I wouldn't have met them in real life. The first was a Physics and Astronomy double major an
Re:Complaints from female friends (Score:3, Insightful)
Well that's the downside of having nothing but computers in your life, isn't it? Get a non-computing hobby, hang out with people who have varied interests. If the computer industry is the only place you meet people, of course you're going to have trouble getting dates. Signing up for a dating service is treating a symptom, not the cause.
Unattractive men (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Complaints from female friends (Score:4, Funny)
Well, if its someone you love and you are only using CAT5 cable
Michael
Hope he doesn't get a payout ... (Score:3, Insightful)
I belong to Match.com (Score:3, Interesting)
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. (Score:5, Interesting)
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."
Re:I'm suprised. (Score:3, Interesting)
When did this happen? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:When did this happen? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:When did this happen? (Score:3, Insightful)
It happened when having money became more important than everything else.
The "boomers" are starting to lose control, and they are fearful of the future (remember, this is the generation that essentially inherited everything - as opposed to "The Greatest Generation").
The boomers have built-up that which they feel comfortable with through not too much effort and they want (understandably) to hold on to it. And society and business has adapted to their wants: 30 years ago, were there 15 vice-presidents in
Re:When did this happen? (Score:3, Insightful)
First, the court's not going to award lawyer fees in a case like this... repaying lawyers fees is not the norm in this country.
Second, no plaintiff is going to pay thousands of dollars to a la
Re:Punitive Damages (Score:3, Insightful)
As for punitive damages... they are SO infrequent in this country that you really shouldn't be too worried about them. Our tort system is not designed to punish people, it is designed to compensate. You need to show amazing wrong-doing with malice and the whole bit i
Ob. jokes. (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
that's a bit more than fraud (Score:3, Insightful)
Common cause (Score:5, Funny)
Lower your expectations (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Lower your expectations (Score:3, Funny)
Fraud? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Fraud? (Score:3, Interesting)
They really need to be more careful about that kind of stuff.
This would seem to raise a seriously interesting.. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:This would seem to raise a seriously interestin (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This would seem to raise a seriously interestin (Score:5, Funny)
Online dating over the last 10 years (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
In soviet russia... (Score:5, Funny)
Yes its real, I was offered a job doing it. (Score:5, Informative)
Online dating - real or scamtastic? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Not necessarily company sponsored (Score:4, Interesting)
Apparently some of them have a great deal of success.
It could definitely be considered a perk of the job.
Good idea, wrong targets (Score:3, Informative)
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 [badbusinessbureau.com] that came up on Google.
springstreet networks (Score:3, Insightful)
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.)
Thoughts on online dating (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Not new :) (Score:4, Interesting)
(*) french telephon network with limited terminal capability
match worked for me (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Look's like they met their match (Score:2)
I'm all for Open Dating, although I don't think that means what you think it means.
And the Dating Rights Managment is something that women are already applying all over the world.
Re:Actually - how many /.-ers use such services?!? (Score:3, Informative)
There was one two years ago.
Tried Online Dating? [slashdot.org]
Comments:1310 | Votes:84872
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