STAR LEDGER -- Aug 7 -- People can post reviews of their dates on TrueDater.com and also plug in a prospective date to see if anyone else has posted a comment about the person. More than a half million people have used TrueDater since the site launched last year. TreuDater staffers monitor the remarks. Mark Brooks, onlinepersonalswatch.com, said "I think it answers a definite need in the online dating market." Brooks said Friendster allows people to write testimonials about a date, but the person being reviewed has to approve it, "so nothing negative gets in." Brooks said TrueDater is the kind of site that makes people think more about their reputation, which is a new issue in online dating. Marcus Frind, founder of plentyoffish.com said both men and women are equally guilty when it comes to fudging profiles. "With women, it's weight; for men, it's height. A third party (giving an assessment) is the simplest way to go." "You have to be honest," said Moreno, Ph.D. student in social psychology at Rutgers University. "The picture is the hook, it gets you in. You see a cute picture and you click on it. I met one guy for dinner a couple of weeks ago and his picture resembled him, but you would not have been able to pick him out of a crowd based on his picture." Moreno suggested singles should not upload their best shot. That way dates can be pleasantly surprised on the first meeting. Eric Straus, president of Cupid.com, said "I don't think it adds all that much to the process," he said. "People tend to exaggerate and I think that's the nature of the beast."
The full article was originally published at NJ.com, but is no longer available.
I totally agree that it's good to allow 3rd parties to evaluate and review you. As he said, otherwise nothing negative gets in. And you need negativities so that everyone doesn't sound like an angel.
hickey
Posted by: Eric | Aug 07, 2006 at 10:48 PM
How do I find out if a person is honest?
Posted by: Kathy | Aug 31, 2006 at 07:43 PM
I am the founder of the ASUDT (Anti-scam Undercover Detection Team.) I have been running foreign scam detection for more than 2 years on a regular basis. I am also a member of Plenty of fish. The POF site is pretty clean in comparason to other sites.
My congradulations.
Specific verification of the location of each member that enrolls is the responsibility of the dating site or should be. That way you're not writing some girl whos' profile states that she is from Florida for example but in reality she is money scammer from the FSU.
Personally I don't think the Government should allow any dating site to operate in the U.S. that has an extensive track record of money scammers and or fradulent activity originating from their sites. I will be proposing that also to our Government and the IFCC. Victims are losing millions of dollars every year to these scammers mainly men. The simple suggestion of " just say no when someone asks you for money is ridiculous". Specifically the victims are men. It is not uncommon for these men to lose as much as $20,000.00 or more but commonly less, $2,000.00 to $5,000.00. Dating site owners, have a moral obligation to thier members to end foreign scam. I investigated one site in which one female scammer wrote to over 250 men in one month re-directing them to a gmail.com address so they could be potentially swindled out of thier money in the name of love or sex. It's got to stop, and either the Government or the Dating sites need to do it. This is not even considering the emotional damage and stress it creates for these victims. The bottom line is this: You developed the site, you control it so it works or shut it down. I understand that is not so easy to do, but research and implimentation on how to do it would be a very advisable thing to do soon.
Western Union also needs to make an effort in this as well. There are many things they can do to help stop this fraud.
I encourage you work with the ASUDT on this problem you may contact us at [email protected]
Posted by: asudt | Dec 25, 2006 at 12:50 AM
By the way 7 of the top 15 sites listed to the left are horendous for scam activity. That's a fact.
Posted by: asudt | Dec 25, 2006 at 12:56 AM
Alot of online dating sites are full of scammers and sex predators.
I met a awful guy named Randy J. Louis from Garden city michigan who had a profile on American Singles which is now singles.net.
His profile said he has a home business, but in reality he is unemployed and living off of disability and living in his moms basement. He claimed to be looking to date, but in reality he is using any dating site, including myspace to lure females into being a "friend" then he slowly tries to get her into sex. The real nightmare is when you fall for this, he either attempts at getting you drunk or talking you into buying alcohol yourself then drink untill your drunk, then he will try to sodomize you. He's into all kinds of pornography and tries to act it out on you while your so drunk you dont know whats going on. If he can con you out of money he will do that too. My advise is to beware of any free dating sites as well as myspace unless your willing to take the chance of meeting sexual predators like that guy.
Posted by: carla | Nov 28, 2011 at 08:02 PM