1. Markus on November 18, 2005 5:04 PM writes...

I highly doubt match or yahoo are doing anything stated here, for them it wouldn't really bring much of a return on investment. As for the fake emails etc that is done by a lot of sites, they would have a lot easier time sueing true.com because former employees have posted that part of their job description was to pose as members to try and get people to convert to paid by sending out fake emails. Look at the internet rip off report and a few other sites.

2. Robert Fisher on November 19, 2005 6:23 AM writes...

I agree with Dave that there is little likelihood that Yahoo posted the Russian brides. It is also not surprising that Yahoo and Match are targeted. Not because of some nefarious practice but because they are large companies, appear to many to have $$ and, therefore, easy targets. What is interesting is that most of these suits tend to come out of California. The next time I drive across into CA I am going to look for that sign...'Welcome to California - The Class Action State!'

3. Cully Perlman on November 21, 2005 6:31 PM writes...

Dave,

I can't see this article being true either. Not sure if it's some sort of oddball ploy for attention, or if he's affiliated with some other site that has a beef with Match. But if it's true, it's definitely ridiculous.

Cully Perlman
Degreedate.com

4. Henning Wiechers on November 22, 2005 6:49 PM writes...

The "M.E. vs. match.com" case was the Online-Dating article with the highest media coverage in Germany ever!

But even numerically the accusation is completely stupid.

- match.com has 1 million paying subscribers.
- Guess 500.000 of them are "quite content subscribers" who are able to organise dates on their own.
- Guess, for some strange reasons match wants to increase the number of content subscribers a bit - let's say from 500.000 to 750.000, so there would be at least a small sustainable effect.
- As said one "date-baiter" can handle 100 clients per month (what a performance!) = 1000 per year.
- So match would need 250 professional date-baiters - and all of them have to keep their mouth shut forever!

What a risky project for not too much beneft!

5. Slider on December 8, 2005 11:43 PM writes...

"match.com has 1 million paying subscribers.
- Guess 500.000 of them are "quite content subscribers" who are able to organise dates on their own."

First off....back up these figures with actual facts ok?

500k of them are content? LMAO! Who?! The women on there? 99.9% of which just want you to go to their paysites...lol

Match.com (formally love@aol) used to be a successful dating site...cuz it was a free site. Ever since AOL turned it into an evil paysite...its over run by "fake" accounts. Its not real at all. Waste of time and money.

FriendFinder.com
This is one of the worst of them all. Surprise, surprise that the guy (yes thats right, a GUY that lives in the czech republic) that owns this site uses this site primarily to route men to his other paysites (guys faking out to be girls, and emailing guys). Its a complete and utter scam...the entire site.

99% of paid dating sites dont contain real people at all. Why? Cuz theres too many FREE dating sites that arent overrun by this crap. Nobody will pay for something they can get for free..simple.

You accuse people of being angry and targeting these companies? Well what would you do if I promised you a service for $$, took your money, ran off with it, and gave you a FAKE product? Yeah....stfu buddy.

Hasta!!
Slider

6. ken akey on December 10, 2005 11:06 AM writes...

There are other sites that are not on the up and up. check out spark nets affiliate. CanadianPersonals.net. usernic name bluecloud... has priveleges none of the other members has

7. James Houran on December 10, 2005 2:20 PM writes...

Markus,

Above you wrote, "they would have a lot easier time sueing True.com because former employees have posted that part of their job description was to pose as members to try and get people to convert to paid by sending out fake emails. Look at the internet rip off report and a few other sites."

I have looked at the Ripoff report for this documentation and did not see it. Please let me know what sites have this documentation. I am extremely interested in obtaining documentation on any and all allegations of unethical business and HR practices by True.com.

Thx,

James Houran, Ph.D.
Research Psychologist

8. Orlando on December 14, 2005 10:58 AM writes...

i don't know much about those sites but i do know there are Alot of fake pics and fraud people on certain other sites like blackpeoplemeet.com Alot of the women that are from Ghana are using fake pics and most of their profiles read the same. As soon as you Im someone they almost exactly ask you for your email address and to add them to your Im buddy list so they can talk more to you and start asking you to send things and want you to marry them by saying they love you and you just started chatting with them that same instant. some of the women are using pics of Models and pornstars. the trick to catching them is to ask good questions.most will say they went back to ghana because their dad died and they live with their mum. none of the have webcams or even have regular home photo pics. all pictures look like they are modeling even though their profiles say the are either a student or sum low level job that cant even afford the expensive looking clothes they are wearing.they are ALLL beautiful except for the certain real ones. But ghana does have gorgeous women and some just a tiny few do try modeling.So sumone really needs to investigate that site for real.

9. studio on December 16, 2005 10:00 AM writes...

I am a male non-subscribing member of multiple online dating sites.
I believe these types of things are actually industry standard operating procedures.

You can tell some of these sites employ professional photography services...in more ways than the flashy Homepage. Many pretty models are professionaly photgraphed, yet have poorly done incomplete profiles, and they just never seem to find Mr. Right for some reason, or send/respond to any inquiries.

I would visit a site, look around, sign-off, check my regular email...and behold, I have a new message waiting for me back at the site I just signed-off.

Not being a subscriber, it does not let me view the message, much less respond to it.
But let me digress. When I did subscribe, the message was sent by another non-subscribing member! How did they send me a message? Non-subscribers can't send messages OR view them.

Also, how do I know the message is NOT a fraudulent and/or useless message generated by AS staff in an attempt to get me to subscribe in order to view it?
One example would be: "We miss you at ****.com. Please re-new your membership with us."
I should pay to read that???

They need to provide a proveable guaranty that these types of things do not happen. Otherwise fraud IS an important part of the game.

10. RAA on December 18, 2005 6:22 PM writes...

Their name should probably be changed to "watch the con", not "match dot com".

Now Match is saying that they've gotten the employee to sign an avidavit that she was never and employee. Yeah right.

Isn't that too easy. If anybody brings up an allegation against a giant like Match that seriously damages its reputation, do you really believe that all Match would do would be to get the person to sign an avidavit? No way, it'd be more like suing the pants off that woman.

The case of her signing an avidavit just means she's been bribed with a few millions to keep here quiet. Scams will never end. Support the free sites and end the greed.

11. Mike on March 7, 2006 2:38 AM writes...

Amateurmatch.com uses many fake profiles of women to get you to pay for subscriptions. Its amazing how many women E-mail you messages when your not paid up, and when you are paid up, none will E-mail you. Then I have more proof. To many profiles not completed. Sometimes small towns (Gaylord, Michigan) will have a large number of available women, far to many for that size town (25 available women). You want more proof, E-mail the same woman twice within an hour and see the same response again. THIS DATE WEBSITE IS A SCAM.

12. Dean on April 7, 2006 4:22 PM writes...

I will not mention the website but I do believe most of them do the fraud. In the last two weeks, I started checking out the major dating website. You get exactly what people describe. Your trial period is over and then you get three or four emails of people interested.

Another point that really concerns me is lets say you do a search by proximity to your zip code. You limit it to 20 miles. You can do a search for all the active members. All of a sudden when your trial membership runs out, you get an email from someone that never showed up in any of your searches.

The following seem to be key for fake ads or employee written ads: 1) If they look like a profesional model 2) If it takes them a week to get back to you and they share your exact same beliefs and put in their email "I am not on thet much these days due to work" which is a clever way of saying "I am employeee for datecompany.com and have 100 other emails to write.

Also, keep in mind free as for the free sites, it doesn't mean they dont have scams going on. Nothing in life is free.

13. David on May 12, 2006 2:46 AM writes...

Surprise, surprise. Fake Ghana women are on myspace.com too. Same thing too, start asking for stuff... who the hell falls for this stuff? Why would someone love you when they first talk to you without a webcam?

14. Brad on May 12, 2006 2:04 PM writes...

Would online date website users be willing to pay for a guarantee from a third party company that provided verification of the identity of profiles on online dating websites?

15. pabloosito on May 26, 2006 10:15 PM writes...

I would like to know the opinion of others on something similar but different. What if when a member signs up in the terms and agreement you state that the girls may receive compensation for being on the site and getting new members. No girl is going to be with a guy who does not at least take her to a movie or buy her a coke. In my opinion this is the equivalent. The guy knows up front what he is doing.
PabloOsito

16. VeNDeTTa on May 29, 2006 5:31 PM writes...

I've been on both Match.com and Yahoo personals for a couple months. I've been targeted by russian women, and have also noticed some fake profiles. the first site i realized had fake profiles was AdultActionCam. it was my first experience with fake profiles so took me a littel while to catch on but here's the scenario: I joined for free and got 2 emails from 2 girls. what i mean is each girl sent me 2 emails. so i paid to join for a month so i could respond to the emails. never heard from either one again. to top it off i would occasionally join the site at all times of day or night and the 2 profiles in question were always up to date. it always said the last time the person logged on was that very day. at this point i dont think i would trust ANY pay site.

17. rruss on June 1, 2006 9:24 PM writes...

Okay, so let's do the math. For every member match.com keeps, it's another $30 to $100. With memberships expiring every day, it costs them nothing to send a fake e-mail in an attempt to keep members active. Let me tell you, I've been on and off with match for three years now ... it's happened to me everytime my membership expires .. an e-mail from a lovely woman that wants to send me pics and stay in touch. Well, guess what?

russ

18. ed on June 4, 2006 2:04 PM writes...

true.com, in my opinion is one of the biggests fakes around, especially ( fite ) supposedly married to the CEO sends you a personal letter frequently,stating she will make sure you get the matches you are looking for. then sends you a few who certainly not what you seek, they are exactly the opposite. after paying for the service for a few months. with no responses, you decide to cancell then many are writing you. only catch you must again pay to view your mail. if this is not fraud what is?????

19. Cody on June 9, 2006 6:12 AM writes...

Marshall Layne Stephen Amari Vaughn Ezequiel

20. Cody on June 9, 2006 6:12 AM writes...

Marshall Layne Stephen Amari Vaughn Ezequiel

21. Robin on June 12, 2006 9:16 AM writes...

I have had many, many emails from men who are "currently doing business in Africa" and would liketo meet me when they get back to the states. The english is written poorly and their profile are always hidden when I look at them. I too have received 4 to 5 emails after I cancelled my subscription and then of course got hooked back in to rejoining to read them. I now know I've been duped by them and will not fall for it again. I thoguth it was odd that they wouldn't allow me to see who had sent me an email to up my curiosity.

22. Jackel on June 30, 2006 12:00 PM writes...

Uhmm,,, ok I was browsing through Yahoo.com dating personals and ran into 3 fake porn stars. I highly doubt that these porn stars are posting but their profiles having been stolen. If you watch a lot of porn like I am sure many do, you will be familiar with these faces...I've only been on here briefly and I am sure there are so many more fakes.

Raylene?

http://personals.yahoo.com/us/preview/preview?search=1&resulttype=1&kws=0&searchinternal=1&position=5&total=1000&adid=personals-1143085178-714296&affid=&searchview=1&searchsort=1&speed=2&advanced=&primary=&searchname=My+First+Search&frmsrch=1

Some Porn star, forget name

http://personals.yahoo.com/us/preview/preview?search=1&resulttype=1&kws=0&searchinternal=1&position=60&total=1000&adid=personals-1116115518-884931&affid=&searchview=1&searchsort=1&speed=2&advanced=&primary=&searchname=My+First+Search&frmsrch=1&added_sa=1&searchcode=2&savedid=personals-1116115518-884931

Hillary Scott?

http://personals.yahoo.com/us/preview/preview?search=1&resulttype=1&kws=0&searchinternal=1&position=11&total=1000&adid=personals-1144853758-323365&affid=&searchview=1&searchsort=1&speed=2&advanced=&primary=&searchname=My+First+Search&frmsrch=1

23. GLENN WOJCIK on July 6, 2006 9:07 PM writes...

Thanks,
This was a great comfort and discomfort to me. I was trying to find another dating site. I went to eharmony but the process is so long. I have been in and out of two of the friend finder sites with nibbles, but no bites. It's usually the samething, an email with a hook to another website for a number. And yes I have seen some supermodels in the profiles. Thanks for this site, good to hear truth for a change. Glenn

24. mike on July 11, 2006 9:54 AM writes...

the pay sites are a riot ,quest had a great site till they started charging ,the service changed completly,tons of scamers ,on all sites

25. Sam on July 19, 2006 4:19 PM writes...

I was on True.com. A woman emailed me saying she is interested on meeting me. I emailed back. Her profile said she lives in New York. Then she sent me her yahoo IM name and told me to IM her. I did. She told me that she lives in Ghana now. Her dad died and she lives with her mom and brother. Then she told me she doesn't have money to pay for the internet access and asked me to send her money for it. That is when I started to think this is fake. She gave me a P.O Box address to send money via WesternUnion. I think True.com is total fake. I get all kinds of messages from Russian Women.

26. Ben on July 22, 2006 1:00 PM writes...

I know someone who's job was to write fake emails to guys, it was for hornymatch.com. She was paid something like 10 cents per email. I dont trust any site.

27. Taylor on August 10, 2006 4:30 PM writes...

First, get your facts straight. Match.com is not formerly love@aol. That was, and probably still is, a partnership.

I agree with the person who mentioned RIO. Match.com would not pay salary for a person to go on dates to earn $30/month.

Fake profiles are not posted by the big players in online dating. If you are finding fake profiles, they're posted by a person who has ulterior motives. Match.com does not have control over such people.

Don't blame lack of response to your profile on the company that merely provides a database of people. Try improving your profile, slick.

28. Rizzo on August 22, 2006 10:49 PM writes...

The undisputable bottom line is, there are at least 20 gold members on Horneymatch.com, in nebraska/iowa alone, that specifically reference the name of their trailer park in thier profile. What other site have you seen that from? And they Are ALL GOLD MEMBERS, WHICH MEANS FOR ANY OF YOU WHO STILL DOESNT GET IT, THEY ARE FAKE AND NO ONE PERSON WOULD SPEND $2000 A MONTH TO SET UP FAKE PROFILES WHICH LEADS TO THE ONLY LOGICAL SOLUTION WHICH IS THAT THE COMPANY ITSSELF IS POSTING THOSE GOLD MEMBER PROFILES.

If you can not see that you are clearly not as intelligent as you think. My thought is that anyone defending this type of action must be involved in some facet because any reasonable and halfway intelligent person would easily recognize that noone would post the name of their trailer park, and the fact that half the goldmembers on HORNYMATCH.COM do, it is obvious.

Dont be an idiot. Quit defending an obvious deciet. QUIT BEING STUPID.

29. Hethomass on August 23, 2006 3:02 PM writes...

[Quote]
Amateurmatch.com uses many fake profiles of women to get you to pay for subscriptions. Its amazing how many women E-mail you messages when your not paid up, and when you are paid up, none will E-mail you. Then I have more proof. To many profiles not completed. Sometimes small towns (Gaylord, Michigan) will have a large number of available women, far to many for that size town (25 available women). You want more proof, E-mail the same woman twice within an hour and see the same response again. THIS DATE WEBSITE IS A SCAM. [/Quote]

You said it! I created a real profile there, got 6 messages from women in like 2 days! Then before I decided to pay them, I created another profile with a different email address, state, city, and name. I made the profile horrible. 400 pound fat guy looking to squish some skinny chicks. Lots of body hair..... well you can imagine, sure enough.... I got a ton of emails from women with that crap.... the same women who were messing my main acct..... look at the differences:

KiraSkye
26 year old Woman
alabama, AL, US

KiraSkye
26 year old Woman
georgia, GA, US

They just changed the state to match that of the account they are spamming.

This is very bad business. They probably have a 50 man per 1 woman ration on that site. Very Very fraudulent business.

30. Pete on September 17, 2006 3:57 AM writes...

I think all of these dating sites are BS. Fake profiles, fake pictures, fake people. Don't waste your time or money. If you're looking to meet someone, you'll have better luck at the neighborhood bar, a church dance, or in the supermarket. Hold on to your cash is the best advice I can give everyone. Good luck.

31. Sandy Scott on September 19, 2006 2:12 PM writes...

Match.com is a total ripoff at this point. I joined and sent out tons of emails only to receive a few replys and the canned "thanks but no thanks" even though I have never had trouble getting dates, I just wanted to try something different. I talked a male friend to join as well (and I am still apologizing to him). He kept making bad choices so I hoped match could help him. This guy is athletic, blonde haired blue eyed and yet he did not get a single match but a few "thanks but no thanks" However, he did get a ton of Russian emails who always wanted money to get their visa. This guy is the All American stud and he can't get a date on there. WOW!

Thinking I was a total loser, I joined Singlesnet.com and had 30 emails the first week! A few were frauds but I had several dates, legit people, etc. Not all of them worked out and there are still a few I haven't been out with yet, but how do I go from Miss loser on match to Miss popularity on another site. I used the same pic, profile, etc.

What I am saying is match used to be legit but very little of it is now. If you are going to try online dating use a free site or a smaller site. Eharmony is pretty bad as well.

32. von on September 20, 2006 10:58 AM writes...

funny I should happen along this...my friend has experienced all of the problems going on these sites...she is on plenty of fish however she has the same complaint about all the sites... the first week a buch of mail then nothin..

and as for nigerians shes been approached several times...on yahoo dating...

since she is a user of these sites every day I trust what she tells me...she will recieve this link in her email for sure

and as for the fake ads I noticed them right away on plenty of fish and other sites

the incorporation of userplane will facilitate more sex cyber hookups ....for those who frequent the sites for that purpose.....and as for actually getting a date well I'll believe it when my fren tells me she finally get to meet someone

33. James OURSLER on September 21, 2006 10:42 PM writes...

Yup you heard it from ALL thses guys(including this one!) so I guess it is true MATCH.COM is totally full of shit. I cancelled my account after receiving no morte emails AFTER i signed up. What a load of shit. The people who run these scam dating sites shpould all have nails put in their heads. I get email from...RU women.. DUH RUSSIA? Or the dumbass emails stating: "I am lost in the world(NIGGERIA- WTF?) send me $$$$! BLAH BLAH BLAH! All this lead to is a big fat ZERO dates with good guys looking for decent women. DO NOT USE MATCH.COM! I wish there actually was a sites devoted to "THE BEST DATING SITES ONLINE?" But you seem to have to go through so much bullshit you just run out of energy wading through all the BS OUT THERE.
PS- WHERE ARE ALL THE COOL LONELYCHICKS OUT THERE ANYWAY? DO THEY RUN INTO THE SAME NONSENSE?
LADIES DO TELL!

34. ST on September 23, 2006 10:31 AM writes...

Something needs to be done about the MAJOR gender imbalance on all dating sites, the men outnumber the women by at least 60% on dating sites. Most women claim to get so many responses (EVERYDAY) that they can't even read them all, and admit that they just end up deleting most of them. Men on the other hand are lucky to get one response a week!! I can personally account for this being true from my own experience, and by talking to many other men and women who have used online dating sites.
Another problem with dating sites is spam and fake profiles. Something needs to be done about that too. I don't know what the clear answer is to that problem, but I'm sure that there is some sharp minds out there who are smart enough to figure something out on that subject.

35. William Hughes on October 3, 2006 9:17 AM writes...

Match.com definitely rips people off. Here's how they do it. They allow anyone to set up a profile even if they aren't a paying subscriber. This misleads people into believing that if they pay their are zillions of singles in their area they can contact. The truth of the matter is that you can only contact other people who are paying so you cannot contact about 99% of the people you see because they are not able to open and respond to your email. I did not know this when I paid for their service. The only reason I ever knew is that I accidentally let my subscription run out and then discovered I could not get into my email box. I thought it was awful strange that I received so many winks but when I wrote to the person who winked at me they would never respond back.

I tested this theory out. I modified my profile by stating at the bottom that I could not answer my emails because I wasn't a paying subscriber. I then submitted this modified profile and and it was rejected even though it did not violate any of the rules of the site. It was very clear that they did not want subscribers to be aware of the fact that they could not contact you.

36. steve on October 4, 2006 6:21 PM writes...

I have the same problem on Blacksingles.com got a ton of emails but once I subscribed, they do not respond to your emails. Also met about 40 women from ghana they are a joke. Have not found one good site yet. Yahoo is full of shit, amateurmatch, plentyoffish, blacksingles, interracialdating, they are all full of shit. So save your money and look elsewhere. Also on blacksingles, they do not allow your contact info in your profile, but there are plenty of women who seem to have no problem putting theirs in there and get away with it.

37. Frobozz on October 14, 2006 1:13 PM writes...

After only 7 days, I have come to realize that Yahoo is promoting a "bait and switch" type atmosphere - fake profiles, phony icebreakers to accounts that don't exist, profiles that mysteriously vanish after initial contacts. It's happened WAY too much for it to be a coincidence. Then, I did some research and found out that they were being sued for the very same thing that is happening to me. Another coincidence? I don't think so. This Personals site is a complete and total fraud.

38. al on October 18, 2006 1:56 PM writes...

same thing happened to me, i got a email when i was on craigslist, and from their i was lured, i got like 10 messages, when i wasnt a member, then i made another account. and got the same messages. i tried to cancel but all they said is my account has be cancelled, and did not give me a refund. i explained that they are fradulent. e.t.c. and im waiting for a reply. ive reported them to the bbb already. they are located in stockton CA under the company of datinggold.

39. al on October 18, 2006 1:58 PM writes...

same thing happened to me, i got a email when i was on craigslist, and from their i was lured, i got like 10 messages, when i wasnt a member, then i made another account. and got the same messages. i tried to cancel but all they said is my account has be cancelled, and did not give me a refund. i explained that they are fradulent. e.t.c. and im waiting for a reply. ive reported them to the bbb already. they are located in stockton CA under the company of datinggold.

40. Peter on October 18, 2006 4:08 PM writes...

amateurmatch.com is hilarious. I have not become a paid subscriber and in the first week I have received approx 40 messages from women wanting to date me, go to hotels. etc. There seem to be inconsistencies in the profiles. They say they are studying in St Louis yet their location is listed as being near me? WTF? And of course there are women who claim to have already messaged me and want a reply to try and bait me. I am sure if I handed over the cash, I would receive none. Finally I changed my profile to include my email address (in a sneaky way). Surprise not a single email to my address, but plenty keep arriving in my amateurmatch.com inbox. And did I mentiojn most of these women look like supermodels, yet claim to live in little towns near me???? Scam scam scam. I think I'll just go a singles night organised my a local restaurant. At least they wil be real people.

41. thunderX on October 21, 2006 3:32 PM writes...

Excellent blog! I wrote an article on this sham if any one is interested:

http://netshams.blogspot.com/

42. Bob on October 22, 2006 8:37 AM writes...

I read the blog and recognize scenarios. But none mentioned the fundemental discrimination, likely present on all dating sites but I only experimented on one site. I created a second profile but as a woman seeking a man. I learned that woman can do many things as a standard member that men must be Gold to do. Write and respond to messages and winks, use the advanced search and more. when a woman complains you never respond she does not know this so gets pissed we are stuck up.

43. caeasr on October 22, 2006 9:31 PM writes...

MOST of the dating services are FAKES. Yes, there are a lot of Real Members, however each of the sites: Match, Yahoo, True, Date, Matchmaker, Americansingles, etc use fake profiles to attract ew paying members. Why would a Gorgeous 29 year old supermodel looks, accomplished woman want to meet a 3 feet, 18 year old guy? Majority od the people of those sites are real, however most of the gorgeous women with a very short profile are NOT. You are being ripped off, don't pay these guys another dime. They do it on purpose, have their employees do it, and friends of their employees. Every search parameters on Yahoo yields exactly 1000 members, wooowww how is that possible? Pretty girls are on the first page-ALWAYS. Most of you are smart and realize the SCAM. keep posting so these scam artists go out of business. people like us expose these scams and we are helping each other out and not waste our money and time on this bull-shit. Tell your friends and everyone you know Thanks guys

44. Edward on October 22, 2006 11:47 PM writes...

I have a solution, join a site that is 100% free, and one that removes Nigerian/Russian/Ukrainian scammers :)

45. robert on October 27, 2006 11:55 PM writes...

ive been in four sites now thinking it will get better ,but for all us guys out there its bs ,they are here for our money ,i lerned a lot form this site tonight .thank you all ,and good luck if your single

46. Jim on November 13, 2006 11:40 PM writes...

I was a paying member on Platinum Romance for a month or so about 7 years ago, and I talked to one woman on the phone for a time. Then about 2 or 3 years ago, I signed up again for about a month or so, no interest was shown in me. After I cancelled I got lots of emails from interested women. So I signed up again to read my emails-this time for a 6 month membership. I wrote to some with not a single response back. During that 6 month period, the big lot of emails stopped coming. And during that time, whenever I contacted Platinum for anything at all, I never received a response. And of course after my 6 month membership was over, I again started getting emails.

47. Baileyb on November 14, 2006 12:49 AM writes...

I wish I had read this blog before joining HornyMatch.com. I suspected something after about 4 days of playing around. Lot of the same things I just read in this thread. Are there any legitimate sites out there? One person referenced Singlesnet.com. Any others to try for real people?

48. RG on November 18, 2006 3:43 AM writes...

After trying a few sites, both free and pay per view, I'd say that the vast majority are either infiltrated by scamers ie. Nigerian lonely hearts in need of a wire transfer, professionals looking for Johns or what I call the "Box within the Box". These are the responses that invite you to visit their "other" site only to lead you down a path towards a second "pay per view" and so on. I also think that certain sites are scaming the public directly. AmateurMatch.com ladies who send a romantic invite to non-paying members who must join to respond. Only to find the exact same message repeated over and over under various names and faces.

The "tell" as they say in poker is the response to your emails if you get that far. Check for constant one sentence responses with lots of "babe" or "baby", in broken, fragmented English eventhough the profile appears to have been written by someone other than an iliterate. My suspicion is that non paying members who abandon their profile and pics come back to life long after the author has moved on.

I wonder if Al Gore ever envisioned this :-)

49. Justaguy on November 19, 2006 1:26 AM writes...

Honestly, Baileyb, I can't think of a single dating site that I would recommend. I've been looking around for years and haven't seen anything promising. I can offer some tips though.

First off, I should say that I think online dating sites are a waste of time; they have never paid off for me and I don't know of anyone who had a positive experience with them.

1 - Stay away from russian women. This goes for any women from eastern europe as well. They are generally gold diggers and aren't the kind of women you'd want to settle down with. My sister looks up weird stuff on the net and she was telling me about russian mail order bride testimonials she'd read...that scared the crap out of me. I wish I still had the link, but the long and short of it is stay away from the russian women.

2 - Avoid cam sites. This should be a no-brainer, but every day thousands of horny men wander into overpriced chat rooms on iFriends and other sites. Those are NOT dating sites. The women on those sites are basically online strippers and they are WAY overpriced. They charge upwards of $5 per minute to chat with you, and some of them do shit to rack up the minutes. Most don't, they just talk to you for at least a minute then take off the clothes. Bottom line, there are less expensive (and more gratifying) ways to get off, and these sites aren't designed for you to meet girls, since most of the women who do the cam shows are from russia, eastern europe, or the phillipines. I don't think I've ever found an american woman on ifriends. It's just not worth your time.

3 - Most pay sites don't make the fake profiles; at least the ones I've joined didn't. I've been on adultfriendfinder, eroticy (which wasn't too bad the last time I was there), and a few others I can't even remember. Most of the fake profiles are created by "girls" trying to get you to join their cam site. Cam sites make LOTS of money. Some of these sites (like adultfriendfinder) have links to cam whores on their site, but you should note that in most cases you are required to make a seperate username/password in order to view said cams. They're technically seperate from the dating site. I actually did date a cam girl (which is a LONG story that I won't go into here) and she explained a lot about how the whole thing works. Anyway, back to dating sites; you have to guess (and this is speculation here) that at least 1/3 of all the profiles on ANY site are fake in one way or another. Also, just because you don't get a response doesn't mean that the girl isn't really there...some of those women DO get tons of email, sometimes DAILY, and it's hard to keep track of that. I do think that some dating sites are doing things that might be unethical (like adultfriendfinder adding a link to cam whores) and I do think that it's possible that the dating sites in question here actually did what they were accused of doing, but that doesn't mean that every profile on every dating site is fake. That's a bit absurd. Besides that, if anyone is behind the fake profiles, it's usually some third party trying to sell porn (or something else).

4 - If you do join a dating site, don't bother looking at profiles without pictures or profiles that have professional looking pictres. If you think every pair of tits you see on one of these sites is "professional" please hit yourself right now. Believe it or not, those sites DO remove users who do stuff like that. About a year ago I got a message on adultfriendfinder and I responded to it...the profile DID seem to match what I was looking for. The next day I got a message from the adultfriendfinder staff saying that the person was removed because they turned out to be running some kind of scam. It is in the interest of these companies to keep their members happy...sometimes they may drop the ball, but I do think that most of the sites that I joined were trying to do just that. I personally never received an email from a "mystery user" right when my membership was about up, though I have no doubt that some sites use tactics like that.

Bottom line, yes there are scams, but not all of them originate with the site itself. Any time you are dealing with horny and lonely (and sometimes desperate) people, you will have creeps that come out of the woodwork to try to take advantage of them.

50. andy clark on November 19, 2006 8:29 AM writes...

I live in England and 2 years ago joined match.com within 24 hours of me posting a profile i was inundated with messages from women i could only describe as catwalk models..... all from the states.

this continued for several weeks until i finally did cough up some money and join properly as opposed to just having a profile posted.... as soon as i'd paid my subscription... NO MORE AMERICAN DOLLYS.... where had they all buggered off too..... So yes i believe there is a scam

51. Augustus on November 19, 2006 1:38 PM writes...

It is interesting that people have come out with complaints about dating sites. You know what? I believe they are genuine complaints. There are too many coincidences in patterns these dating sites use on innocent paying subscribers. For example: I signed up with SEXSEARCH as a non paying subscriber. Boy...did i ever receive so many e-mails in the first two weeks from beautiful women who made some outrageous sexual overtures. So i decided to join as a paid subscriber. Is it a coincidence that in two months since payment i haven't received one e-mail! These are other sites i have joined as a non paying subscriber, but am receiving many e-mail notifications: MATURELINK and MATCHMATE. I now am convinced they are wasting their time. First we had THE NIGERIAN SCAMS, THE RUSSIAN SCAMS and now THE ONLINE DATING SCAMS. THESE ARE CRIMINAL OFFENSES AND SHOULD BE TREATED AS SUCH!These people need to be prosecuted before this type of criminal act get's out of hand!!

52. robert on November 22, 2006 10:19 AM writes...

Hey all --

PLENTYOFFISH.com

Why?

Because it's TOTALLY FREE. Yes, I'm telling the truth. No, I don't work for them. No, there are no catches.

Will you instantly get women flocking to date you?

Probably not.

But I bet you'll have a good experience. And you can't beat the price!

As for pay sites, FASTCUPID.com is great. The profiles attract a more intelligent, select crowd. (Bad if you're dumb; good if you're selective.)

Best of all, you pay a small fee for each email you send. Like mailing a letter. And it's FREE to read and respond to any mail you receive. I once paid maybe $10 to buy credits, and even after sending out several emails, I still have tons of credits left. Great site.

Enjoy!

53. mary on December 1, 2006 1:40 PM writes...

i agree with a lot of what i'm reading,but i got to say..i really agree with robin...i find that on many dating sites i'm on.i seem to get email from men who claim to be working in africa,yet say they're from the USA....but see i'm not one to trust too much of anything without hard proof..so i question them,what kind of music do you like.they usually only know one artist from a certain catagory,and i'm thinking no matter what race you are...if you live or lived in the USA you've heard of so many singers...so i basically tell they to step!...and i don't pay for any site because like some of you guys said..i do notice when i leave the site i get so many emails saying..this person want so meet you,etc..i'm like...too damn bad!