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. 

Comments

[Julia Dorofeeva]

It's a good tendency. Now when scammers deceive not only your site members but also site administrators, it's necessary to have a kind of "security team" you have mentioned to protect your users and site's reputation.

So hope very soon very site will have this innovation and scammers will have bad times.

[Kathryn Lord]

I've written regularly about online dating scams in my blog postings on safety http://www.find-a-sweetheart.com/blog/C15/ I used to think that scamming was very rare, but I have been hearing more and more about it lately, and not just in the press (which I tend to distrust because of it's "If it bleeds, it leads" mentality). In particular, my clients and newsletter readers have been telling me about getting scammed themselves. I plan to get much more vocal about scamming self-protection, but I certainly am glad to read that the dating sites are actively pursuing scammers. Even Western Union (often used by scammers to transfer money) is apparently helping out: one client told me of trying to send money to an online contact through Western Union. She was thoroughly grilled about whether she was SURE that the recipient was not a scammer. Yea, Western Union!

[Valenti International]

I was told that matecheck.com also helps with tracking down suspicious online daters.

[Steve Bywater]

Not all scammers are Nigerian... Russian bride scams are just as prevalent in our industry. At Cupid.com, since we only cater to US and Canadian users, we block all IPs except those originating from US or CA. We just don't do business anywhere else, so it helps stop them at the door. Of course, that's not the only measure it takes to keep scammers out.

[Jo Jo]

Most sites that I've participated with have had this problem. Not only foreign bride scams, but sleezy porn sites represented by profiles within the database. It's disheartening.

[Jackie]

We use several methods on our site. The main ones you have to watch out for are those who mung their IP address to look like they are in the States and don't post a photo or profile. These are the ones that are professionals and are harder to detect without human intervention.

There are the "standard" photos used on all sites which we see regularly on myspace and yahoo and other free dating sites. We ban those immediately. We then use a combination of manual review of every photo and profile and after a while you can pick the fakes based on the types of things entered in the profile. Things like mispelling of the town name they say they are based in, using capital L instead of I, saying they were born in the USA but had to go back to Nigeria because of a death in the family, saying they are working as a contractor in Africa...and the list goes on.

Anyone we ban we ask to provide us with a proof of ID photo which is a photo of them holding a sign with www.afroromance.com on it and the date. I have have about 20 do this of the many thousands I have banned. As in interracial dating site I don't feel it would be fair to ban entire countries due to a few scammers. We've had too many success stories and marriages to do that.

[Nick Akin / TownsBestSingles.com, Free Online Personals]

I get them on my site and they are quite a hassle to deal with. I believe in equality when it comes to information on the internet and thats the only reason I am not blocking users from Africa. I don't think blocking an entire country is fare for people who live there, just because of bunch of lowlifes.

[mike]

hello
how are u doing today,am happy to be here to meet a girl that i can love am mike 22 from africa nigeria plz i need a nice girl to be my lover this my no 2348077435775 call me here u care byeeeee have a nice day.................?

[Ayo Ogolo]

I am quite disturbed by what can only be described as a segregation move, in order to stop unwanted email coming from Nigeria. And in defence I would say that all Nigerians are not thieves, robbers or scammers. If you want to talk about thieves, robbers or scammers you only need to look at your own government and the genocide lie that they have condoned in relation to the Iraq war. Then there is the issue of the 16th amendment and the Federal Bank Reserve in which trillions of tax payer’s money goes missing - under your very noses. So please before you accuse everyone one of being a thief, robber or scammer look to your own country and how they have exploited and embezzled their own countries wealth and ask yourself in the scheme of things who is the real liars, or the real cheats who wave a flag of tautological indifference and paint a picture of holy than though!

Ayo

[Online Dating]

Good on them I say, thats the way it should be! :)

[Tom73]

I looked recently at a statistic that showed how much money people had lost to dating scams. 833 people lost an average of U$9,800 per person, one woman lost a total of U$36,000!. Dating websites have the right to protect their business by blocking counties or IP's that are "high risk" for the safety of legitimate users.

[ronald]

Wow, if they delete all scam profiles I wonder how many profiles will be left. If they also remove the married guys telling everonye they are single and all other cheaters and scammers, they can probably shut their doors.

[Aloni84]

As there are scammers and fake profiles on dating websites, I recently found that potential daters need to be cautious of the actual site administrators. One site inparticular, which has already been mention on this blog is AfroRomance.com.

This is how it works.

It is great at 1dt. It is free to look around and send flirts to people which is how you generally show interest. For example, you flirt with someone and they send you a flirt back, showing "mutual interest" as the site would call it. You message this person knowing that they will responde because they showed mutual interest. It was free to this point, now you have to pay to send the message. But fine right? You have to pay something on most dating sites anyway.

No, no, no.
You message a guy or a girl after you have already paid and wait for a reply, right? You wait and wait and wait. Wait some more. Then you click on this person's to find you have been BLOCKED. You wonder why would some one who showed mutual interest in you literally 24 hours ago, leading you to think that if you only pay the fee you can message back and forth, and as soon as your card is charged the next day, block you? Hmm?

I did a lil investigation with one particular popular member on their site. It turns out, that what I just described is actually what this one profiler did not 1 out of 6 times but EVERY time.

Who would want this profiler to do this? Why the peopole who would have something to gain of course!
The site itself.
So in the thick of fake profiles, Russian brides and married people beware of the site administrators!!!!

Besides they already have their money, excuse me, your money and if you ask them about being blocked they will tell youit is every members security/preference to block who ever they want when ever they choose and for what ever reason and they stand behind that person and you, if that is what you choose to do.
They GOT YOU!!!!

[James Morris]

Scammers have to go. They are the reason that make people not trust online dating making most people pass on the chance of finding love. So if my profile gets deleted for the safety of online dating, AMEN

[Oksana Boichenko]

Yeah, guys - scams are everywhere all over the world so everyone should be careful. At Oksanalove.com we usually reject profiles if the post addresses and phone numbers are invalid, and we are very careful with the girls profiles, because our site is about Russian brides dating with European and American men, so we are always on alert... we also do background check of ladies for the guys who are not our clients.

Love is what poeple want to find on online dating sites, not someone who wants to spend your money.

[free online dating]

yes customer service shouldn't start and stop with a members complaint, all dating sites should have a plan in action to prevent complaints from the offset where ever possible and monitoring forums and mass mailing is important. Members are going to be reluctant to join a dating site if they think they may become a target of some scam or another