| Beltway Babe Babble |
| Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me a .........Lawsuit? |
| by Janice Pfeiffer |
"NEW YORK (Reuters) - It's not easy finding love in cyberspace, and now some frustrated online daters say they were victims of fraud by two top Internet matchmaking services and have taken their complaints to court.
Match.com, a unit of IAC/Interactive Corp., is accused in a federal lawsuit of goading members into renewing their subscriptions through bogus romantic e-mails sent out by company employees. In some instances, the suit contends, people on the Match payroll even went on sham dates with subscribers as a marketing ploy."
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Fellow D.F.R. readers, I could NOT let this one slip by without comment. You see, having myself been both a victor and a victim of Match.com and Yahoo! Personals, I, like Theresa Heinz Kerry, have something to say.
I find it difficult to believe that either of these established dating services would have to resort to these tactics to keep subscribers. I can say this because over the last four years, both services have gotten hundreds, no, make that thousands, of my personal hard earned dollars, as well as subscriptions from many of my friends. And we are just a few. If you look at the statistics that match.com quotes, they say they have something like 8 million people a month that use it. Thats more than 25,000 people a day. At approximately $25.00 per month, that's a hell of a lot of money for love - or at least a 30 minute meeting at Starbucks.
I know it's a business, but even I have trouble believing that these sites (Match and Yahoo! Personals) would stoop this low. I guess all really IS fair in love (even cyber-love) and war. Perhaps these websites just can't accept the fact that for some people, love on the web just isn't the way to go. After many, many dates (of which I could write novels-not just blogs-but that's another story) and a few actual relationships, that's the conclusion that I have come to myself. Not that these services aren't great in theory, but for every "success story" there are thousands for whom the elusive "chemistry" does not transfer from the small screen, so to speak, to real life.
So, if I ever DO again decide to cyber date, I guess I will have to do a background check on anyone I decide to meet, to make sure they aren't a fraud. Should be easy enough though - one of my boyfriends I met on Match.com works for the FBI.
Watch out, Match and Yahoo. It's clear that, at least going forward, your users are now watching you.... |
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