Date and Switch?

7 NEWS BOSTON -- Dec 12 -- New claims say some of the tempting profiles you see may really be cyber fakes. David Lemay put his profile on the web and got a response from an Elle McPherson look alike.  David emailed back, but nothing.  New lawsuits claim Match.com and Yahoo's sites have posted fake profiles on purpose to lure people into paying for membership renewals.  The complaint lists different potential daters using the exact same phrases in their profiles--too unique to be a coincidence. Match.com calls the suit extortion.  Mark Brooks runs "Online Personals Watch." He admits date baiting can happen but can't believe larger sites do it.  "To have a product manager put the hand up in a meeting and say, 'hey, why don't we put up bogus emails so we can improve our conversion rates'...they'd get fired." Brooks says some companies filter out obscene photos and obvious fakes but they don't make sure postings are real people.  Experts think online daters are targeted when their memberships are expiring. 

The full article was originally published at 7 News Boston, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: Sites will typically bubble up expiring profiles in searches. Nothing new there.  However, product managers, employees, please make sure to delete test profiles.  The profile used in this video looks to me like a test profile.  Not date bait, but a profile that an employee might put up to test the site.  I can see 3rd tier, one-man-band sites succumbing to the temptation of using date bait to raise their conversion rates out of the ashes.  Match, Yahoo, nah!  I have great respect for these companies and their integrity.  As an industry, I think we need to freeze profiles from search results that are completely unresponsive after 20 contacts/2 weeks. 

Comments

[Dan]

Mark

You're the only one that likes True.com. From what I understand you are on their payroll. The concern is date bait and True, which is accused of that and much more. What they are doing is baiting the user so they will continue memberships at 50 bucks a pop. True's owner and wife are on the site. What happen to no married people allowed? They are breaking their own rules. "Undermoose" and "fite" use the chat room and contact other members. So if they are married and are contacting others once again their claims are false and their system doesn't work. True proved their background checks don't work when they failed to discover Dr. Wells

Something else I would like to know. True claims they are wholesome and safe. The ads True is putting out are sleazy. On askmen.com True uses the women members as bait and ask people to vote for the hottest girl. There is another lawsuit waiting to happen.

I have seen details of Vest's former fiancee's claims and lawsuit and with what Vest is doing it is consistent with her claims.

It is a matter of months when True goes belly up! The legal problems alone are going to sink this ship! Vest suing Dr. Jim Houran his own expert. When the details go public True is dead. Vest blocking his own background against lawsuit with his ex-fiancee shows what a hypocrite he is. President Bush can't stop leaks from his own office what makes Vest think he can hide his dirty secrets. Sealing a file doesn't' preclude her from speaking out or doing an interview with a major news program either.

Mark you may think of jumping ship before you destroy your creditability!

[Tim Horrigan]

The "Elle McPherson" photo featured in the TV clip was indeed a model, but it wasn't Elle McPherson.

[JanJan]

"The profile used in this video looks to me like a test profile. Not date bait, but a profile that an employee might put up to test the site." When an employee contacts a member using a test profile, I believe that is called date bait.