CHANNEL4 - Nov 1 - Global Personals is one of the UK's largest internet dating companies. Headquartered in Windsor it makes £40M a year, has 130 staff and runs 7,500 dating sites. Two former employees have described how the company duped daters into parting with their cash. Ryan Pitcher and Tom (not his real name) were recruited to join Global Personals to set up and run fake profiles on the company's network of sites. The team members would scour social networks and steal people's photos to use on their fake profiles. Each team member would be running as many as 15 different personalities. In a statement, Global Personals said: "Global Personals was one of the first online dating companies to stop using fake profiles. For almost three years we have actively encouraged other online dating businesses to also stop this practice." The success of the company's pseudo team means it has built up a database of 2.2m people. Trading Standards in Windsor said it has had "ongoing dealings" with Global Personals regarding the company's alleged use of fake profiles.
Ross Williams states: ...We appreciate the acknowledgement that Global Personals has received for being one of the only online dating businesses not to be carrying out this practice. We continue to campaign against pseudo profiles and ask the rest of the industry to stop this practice.
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