Wednesday, April 29, 2009

The World of On-Line Dating



If you know someone looking for Mr. or Mrs. Right ... you'll want to check out the match.com story the News 3 Investigators did.
You can see it by clicking here.


Several days before the story aired I tried to contact Match.com for a comment. When the company did respond, they made no mention of what I asked them. Specifically, how often are customers being hit up for cash by people they've recently met on the site. I know they have this information, because the woman in our story filed a complaint with match.com and one of the questions asked on the complain form is "Did this person ask you to send them money?".


Here's the official response.

In regards to your email, we are terribly sorry to hear about this members' situation. In addition to employing an excellent Customer Care team that constantly monitors, investigates, and removes fraudulent accounts, we also provide all of our members with valuable online dating safety tips that can be found here:
http://www.match.com/matchus/help/safetytips.aspx



Match.com makes no mention of Romance Fraud. But that looks like what happened to the woman in our story.
Romance Fraud: when a person befriends someone on line, pledges their love, and within a week or two makes a plea for money. It was one of the top scams on the 2007 Internet Complaint Center Annual Report.
This shouldn't stop you from trying to meet someone. But keep these things in mind.

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