Online Dating Industry Deleting Scammers

CHICAGO TRIBUNE's RED EYE -- Oct 24 -- The online dating industry has learned to cut off scammers at the pass.  Nelson Rodridguez, CEO LoveAccess, employs a full-time staff to look for suspicious behavior, like a member sending out hundreds of e-mails a day or posting the same photo on multiple profiles. The effort results in the removal of 20 to 30 profiles a day. Match (15 million users) has staffers personally review each profile and photo before posting them to the site. ~15% of profiles are rejected each month.  A security team seeks and weeds out people who compromise the user experience for others. Some dating sites simply block all IP addresses from Nigeria, said Mark Brooks, an online dating industry analyst. But with scammers changing tactics, it's a constant game of cat-and-mouse. 419eater.com encourages people to bait scammers. Romancescam.com, posts the photos, e-mail addresses and usernames that scammers have used. The FBI hopes to tackle the problem by educating people about scams, FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said. The agency helps fund a Web site called www.looks toogoodtobetrue.com and encourages people to report scams to the Internet Fraud Complaint Center, at ic3.gov.