
Romance website Match.com sued for $1.5 billion over 'unauthorized' photos - daegloe
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/25/net-us-usa-florida-match-idUSBRE9AO0Y420131125
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enraged_camel
I had a friend who used to work for one of Match's competitors. He left when
he learned of the unethical bullshit that goes behind the scenes. It's
actually pretty awful.

The fake profiles are almost always female because sites like Match.com are
heavily male dominated - they're what you would call sausage-fests. To even
out the numbers, the site hires contractors to create fake but plausible
profiles of decently attractive women, which is not a hard thing to do.

But it doesn't stop there. Let's say that you as a male user subscribe to the
service and send out twenty beautifully-crafted messages to women who seem
like good matches, and eagerly wait for a response. When none comes (since
every decently attractive woman receives tens of messages everyday, and yours
was just one of them), you lose your motivation. Just as you're about to
cancel though, you receive a hopeful "nudge" or a "wink" from someone. Maybe
you message back and forth a few times, enough such that you decide not to
write off the site and allow your subscription to renew.

What happened is that you got gamed. These sites are very good at
algorithmicly determining "at risk" users and they target them heavily with
attention from fake profiles to induce them to stay. Of course, nothing comes
out of those interactions but that doesn't matter - the longer the site can
string along the user, the more money it makes.

My friend told me that ALL paid online dating sites (including Match) engage
in this practice, which makes total sense. After all, you don't want users
leaving your site in droves and signing up for the competition. You need to
convince them somehow that they aren't total losers, and the best way to do
that is to have a blond, 27-year old "Jessica" \-- who loves dogs and just
moved to the user's city and is looking for fun things to do -- give them some
attention.

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kyledrake
I know a lot of the people that are in charge of removing these scammers
(they're not really spammers as much) from OKCupid and Match. The idea that
they are conspiring with these scammers is mind-blowingly insane. Why would
they? Match makes plenty of money charging a highly legitimate subscription
for their excellent service of helping us find people we love. What possible
benefit would they get out of conspiring on western union money scams with
morally and economically bankrupt people that consult witch doctors to gain
internet fraud powers (I'm not making this shit up:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o26Eks801oc](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o26Eks801oc))
and can barely type out english?

My suspicion (without knowing or asking) is that the scammers are probably
using profiles stolen from other people, and this crazy lawsuit
lady/lawyer/seriously-who-gives-a-fuck decided that there was a conspiracy
between the two, while the reality is that Match is working their asses off
(especially on holidays like Thanksgiving because the scammers assume people
are on vacation and double-time it) to ban the scammers from the site.

Call a piece of shit a piece of shit. This is a hail-mary attempt by asshole
lawyers to extract money from, unlike them, a productive industry that makes
money from providing us with a useful service and doing a good job. If I was
as big of a shithead as these people were, I would need about 1.5 billion
dollars worth of opulence to forget how horrible I was too.

If they're interested in suing scammers, they should sue themselves.

~~~
dirkgently
Putting all other things aside, I know the incentive for the websites to
outsource somebody to create fake profiles (see the comment here -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6823194](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6823194)).
But what's the incentive for the 'scammers'? How can they 'scam' people on
match.com by creating fake profiles? By making them come all the way to
Nigeria and rob them? Give me a break.

I am not a big fan of the lawyers, but you sound too biased with statements
like - "Match is working their asses off" "their excellent service", "piece of
shit a piece of shit".

~~~
tedunangst
Gathering info for a future scam? Match seems like a good vector to get people
to divulge personal details that then make a later "it's your friend john, I'm
stuck in the airport and need you to wire me some money" scam work.

You could use Facebook, but I have no reason to tell people on Facebook
details about my past. They're my friends, they already know. Dating sites are
the best way to get a stranger to tell you something personal.

------
arb99
Some of the dating sites do worse than just steal pics. They hire cheap labor
(3rd world) and using fake accounts send fake replies to guys (paying
members). All under a ToS saying it is for entertainment purposes only.

Match will just claim it was spammers and scammers, not done by match.com's in
house team.

There are companies set up out there that will populate a dating site with
fake profiles. (I don't know their urls, but seen them before)

I think there was also a UK documentary on scammy UK dating sites, on tv a
little while ago. All using fake profiles of course.

~~~
loceng
I don't know if Match.com incentivized this kind of behaviour, though it's
very possible - however not sure that would make them liable, most likely they
have in their ToS that they don't allow certain behaviours - but don't enforce
it.

------
Brian_Curliss
Lol, it must be difficult being sued for $1.5bn in a $2.1bn industry.
[http://www.marketresearch.com/Marketdata-Enterprises-
Inc-v41...](http://www.marketresearch.com/Marketdata-Enterprises-
Inc-v416/Dating-Services-6773764/)

------
objclxt
The complaint itself is here:

[http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...](http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1585&context=historical)

------
yuliyp
I'm confused here. Why would match _want_ fake profiles on the site? Wouldn't
that drive people away pretty quickly once they catch on that the hot chicks
they're trying to talk to aren't what they seem?

~~~
kristiandupont
Well for one, it's a solution to the chicken-and-egg problem that dating sites
face when starting out. And I guess even with traction, you want people to
feel like they are in "a crowded room", even if a bunch of the profiles don't
respond back or flake.

~~~
draugadrotten
All dating sites do this. If you know of a single dating site that did not
"seed" with model photos when it was started, I would be interested to know
about it.

badoo is another scam site with 80% fake model photos - it's obvious

the online dating scene is big money and very poor ethics

I'd like to see google dating - with a "don't be evil" motto

~~~
jasonlotito
> All dating sites do this.

That's not true at all. I know this for a fact. I

> badoo is another scam site with 80% fake model photos - it's obvious

I don't know the badoo guys personally, but I'm pretty sure they are working
just as hard combatting fake model photos. It's not an easy solution, as you
can't just say "Oh, look, let's ban everyone with this photo" because they
will change photos constantly.

------
lifeisstillgood
Quite an accusation :

Match are acussed of

\- seed their database with fake profiles using photos of models to make their
site more appealing. So many that they make the difference in their leadership
of the US market

\- match use Russian/Nigerian scammers to do this - or at least knowingly
allow the scammers to create enormous numbers of fake profiles (not too clear
which choice)

My view: yes this goes on, and the whole case hinges on how much effort match
puts into cleaning its house on a regular basis .

------
hkmurakami
Is this a case where a lawyer reached out to people who would back him in his
pursuit of a settlement?

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aquadrop
Hm, why stop at $1.5 billion? $150 billion would be even funnier.

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itsbits
1.5bn!!!...they have to go bankrupt..

~~~
gaius
Uhhh... Good?

Okcupid did a great analysis on why match.com's business is fatally flawed,
they took it down when match.com bought them out, but you can probably still
find it.

~~~
philippelh
[http://www.columbia.edu/~jhb2147/why-you-should-never-pay-
fo...](http://www.columbia.edu/~jhb2147/why-you-should-never-pay-for-online-
dating.html)

~~~
dirkgently
That was an interesting read. Thanks for the link. It also confirms what I
always thought about their 'model'.

------
arbuge
Let me see if I got this right... If the allegations are indeed true, this
"part-time model" believes that fake pictures of herself posted on match.com
have resulted in $1.5b of damage to her career?

If I ever have daughters, I guess I should push them into part-time
modelling...

~~~
zecho
You didn't get it right. From the first sentence in the article: "A Florida
woman has filed a $1.5 billion class-action lawsuit against online dating site
Match.com..."

