The Federal Trade Commission filed legal action against the owners of Match dot com, which is a parent company of several dating websites, for numerous fraudulent and deceptive practices spanning many years and involving hundreds of thousands of consumers.

Match allegedly not only sent false advertisements claiming a fictitious person wanted to meet them, they knowingly allowed users to be contacted by third party romance scammers to boost their bottom line. Match's business model allows people to sign up and view profiles for free, but requires an upgrade to a paid subscription to respond to messages.

Some highlights of the report:

  • Match knowingly allowed romance scammers to contact unpaid members to induce them to purchase subscriptions
  • Millions of contacts that generated Match’s “You caught his eye” notices came from accounts the company had already flagged as likely to be fraudulent. However, Match blocked these messages from being sent to existing paid subscribers.
  • During a 2 year period through 2018, nearly 1/2 million people purchased a Match subscription within 24 hours of receiving a message from a fake profile
  • In some months between 2013 and 2016, more than half of the instant messages and favorites that Match users received came from accounts that Match identified as fraudulent
  • In 2018, romance scams ranked number one on the FTC’s list of total reported losses to fraud. The Commission’s Consumer Sentinel complaint database received more than 21,000 reports about romance scams, and people reported losing a total of $143 million
  • Match promised a free six-month subscription if users did not “meet someone special,” without adequately disclosing numerous requirements before the company would honor the guarantee
  • Customers who unsuccessfully attempted a chargeback were blocked from services they had paid for
  • Failed to provide a simple method for a subscriber to stop recurring charges from being placed

Some might see this as grist for the "All online dating is a scam!" mills. However, I'm not claiming here that online dating never works, because I've used it very successfully going back to the dial-up modem days. The take-home here is, if you pay for online dating, buyer beware and make sure you get your money's worth!


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