Online dating services accused of fraud

WASHINGTON - If you search for a life partner with the aid of online dating services, be careful - at least in the US.

That is the seeming message of two cases involving well-known match-making agencies who are being sued for fraud. They stand accused of either sending their own staff on dates with customers, or of inventing phoney subscribers to bolster business.

One case involves the self-proclaimed market leader Match.com, whose website claims to be "The World's Largest Online Dating, Relationships, Singles & Personals Service," responsible for having inspired "twice as many marriages as any other site."

It has now been accused in a Los Angeles lawsuit of sending false emails to clients, and using its own staff for meetings to keep them interested - a practice known as "date bait." Match.com denies the allegations.

The other involves the giant internet search engine Yahoo. Its personal service, according to another lawsuit in San Jose, California, has committed breach of contract, fraud and unfair trade practices.

Specifically, it is accused of posting fake client profiles on its website in a bid to convince clients that it has more subscribers than it really has.

Yahoo has made no comment.

On-line dating services are a fast growing sector in the US, with a turnover of some US$250m annually.

An estimated 15m people are said to have sought happiness through Match.com, paying around US$30 a month to be put in touch with potential partners.

But if the charges are to be believed, the buyer should beware.

Match.com is alleged to secretly employ people to send in alluring profiles, and then go on up to 100 dates a month - an average of more than three a day - "date bait" to keep the punters happy.

"Hiding behind Match.com's portrait of online success is a very big, very dirty secret," the Los Angeles lawsuit claims. "Not everyone you meet and date through Match.com is just another Match.com member."

Though brought by just one person, the case could evolve into a class action suit, involving any Match.com client who feels he or she has not got value for money.

The agency is vowing a "vigorous" defence to the suit, saying it "absolutely does not" employ people to entice customers, and said the charges were "completely without merit."

A Match.com spokeswoman pointed to a survey showing that 12 per cent of marriages in 2004 resulted from meeting online as proof that such services were on the level.

Match.com membership meanwhile had risen by 19 per cent in a year.

But the lawsuit claims that employees of the agency keep track of customers whose subscriptions are close to expiry by secretly reading their emails. They allegedly use the information "to make themselves appear to be the 'perfect match' to that person."

In a separate case, the New York-based Great Expectations dating service was recently ordered by a judge to refund money to two women who said they never got any dates after paying up to US$1000 for a six-month subscription.

- INDEPENDENT