OPW — June 15 — I asked Match.com for a statement regarding the McGinn suit where Match is accused of 'defrauding customers who paid for the dating service by failing to disclose that it lumps together current subscribers and canceled members and displays them as the same.' The CEO of Match, Greg Blatt, states… "Match.com’s continued success depends upon the success of our members in making online connections and turning them into meaningful relationships offline. The allegation that we would deceive our subscribers by encouraging them to connect with inactive members therefore makes no sense and is contradicted by our 14-year record and the hundreds of thousands of members who find someone special on Match.com every year. We understand that finding romance, offline or online, can at times be emotional and personal, and we wish Mr. McGinn well in his search. But his lawsuit is without merit, and we will defend it vigorously."
Your comments please.
There is international precedent!
Something similar had happened with Parship in Belgium.
There is an action against Parship.be which lied about their customers
(80.000 announced, 5000 in reality) in Belgium
Source: an email I have received last 23 DEC 2008
I think Match will be defeated and Match will be ordered to specify:
E.g.
Male profiles
Female profiles
All profiles: e.g. 27,000,000
Male customers
Females customers
Paying clients: e.g. 1,450,000
Be2 service is also under fraud investigation in Mexico and Spain, seems they have some denounces in consumer associations. [You can use Google/Yahoo/Bing and search: Be2 + fraude]
Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
There is international precedent!
Something similar had happened with Parship in Belgium.
There is an action against Parship.be which lied about their customers
(80.000 announced, 5000 in reality) in Belgium
Source: an email I have received last 23 DEC 2008
I think Match will be defeated and Match will be ordered to specify:
E.g.
Male profiles
Female profiles
All profiles: e.g. 27,000,000
Male customers
Females customers
Paying clients: e.g. 1,450,000
Be2 service is also under fraud investigation in Mexico and Spain, seems they have some denounces in consumer associations. [You can use Google/Yahoo/Bing and search: Be2 + fraude]
Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
Well, Mr. Blatt, if you say showing bright yellow “Mail Her” envelope icons on dead or unpaid profiles doesn’t constitute encouragement then I say “good luck” to you in court.
http://www.pinoy.ca/eharmony/1543
Well, Mr. Blatt, if you say showing bright yellow “Mail Her” envelope icons on dead or unpaid profiles doesn’t constitute encouragement then I say “good luck” to you in court.
http://www.pinoy.ca/eharmony/1543
Match is an integrity player in the iDating industry. They’ve done well, and continue to do well because they have the users interests at heart. As do most others. Alas, some rogue players don’t, and may give the rest of the industry a bad name.
How do your site deal with cycling out old profiles? Do you monitor and rank them by their responsiveness? What other factors do you use?
Match is an integrity player in the iDating industry. They’ve done well, and continue to do well because they have the users interests at heart. As do most others. Alas, some rogue players don’t, and may give the rest of the industry a bad name.
How do your site deal with cycling out old profiles? Do you monitor and rank them by their responsiveness? What other factors do you use?
We all belong to a responsible society and thus it is our sole responsibility to follow all the rules and regulations of the society. A lawyer is a person who helps in maintaining the law of conduct in the society.
Angel Thomas
We all belong to a responsible society and thus it is our sole responsibility to follow all the rules and regulations of the society. A lawyer is a person who helps in maintaining the law of conduct in the society.
Angel Thomas
On my free sites, I do not monitor responsiveness. However, I do monitor dead email addresses, so every member on my site who gets messaged, gets notified and has the ability to answer no matter how old their profile. When we claim a number of members, that number is actual available members that can email you back.
Match.com did not answer the actual complaint if you noticed. It was like me in traffic court arguing that I am a safe driver when I just got a speeding ticket.
On my free sites, I do not monitor responsiveness. However, I do monitor dead email addresses, so every member on my site who gets messaged, gets notified and has the ability to answer no matter how old their profile. When we claim a number of members, that number is actual available members that can email you back.
Match.com did not answer the actual complaint if you noticed. It was like me in traffic court arguing that I am a safe driver when I just got a speeding ticket.
I’ve called this practice of identical profile postings for paid and unpaid listers “Internet dating’s dirty little secret.” Here’s a link to my first blog post about the practice. But I had been writing about this “dirty secret” for several years before.
Note too that the dating sites NEVER publish their member (paid and unpaid listers) and subscriber (paid only) numbers together. The most recent figuring I did was several years ago when the two very different numbers from Match seemed to indicate something like 13:1 non-paid to paid members.
Now, I still thing that Match is the best all-around dating site and recommend it to all my romance clients, but this all-too-common practice of Match and other paid sites is long overdue for a change. “Why don’t they answer my emails?” is THE most common complaint I hear from Internet daters. And probably the most common reason for non-replies is that the lister is a freeloader and not a paid member. It’s too bad that it make take legal action to get dating sites to stop this practice. All it would take is some small indicator on each profile of the lister’s status. I’d find that information as valuable as a persons height or marital status (not that those “facts” are always true…)
I’ve called this practice of identical profile postings for paid and unpaid listers “Internet dating’s dirty little secret.” Here’s a link to my first blog post about the practice. But I had been writing about this “dirty secret” for several years before.
Note too that the dating sites NEVER publish their member (paid and unpaid listers) and subscriber (paid only) numbers together. The most recent figuring I did was several years ago when the two very different numbers from Match seemed to indicate something like 13:1 non-paid to paid members.
Now, I still thing that Match is the best all-around dating site and recommend it to all my romance clients, but this all-too-common practice of Match and other paid sites is long overdue for a change. “Why don’t they answer my emails?” is THE most common complaint I hear from Internet daters. And probably the most common reason for non-replies is that the lister is a freeloader and not a paid member. It’s too bad that it make take legal action to get dating sites to stop this practice. All it would take is some small indicator on each profile of the lister’s status. I’d find that information as valuable as a persons height or marital status (not that those “facts” are always true…)
I would think it would be easy to display whether someone is an actively paying member or a non-paying member. It would be a waste of time to craft an e-mail and send it to a non-paying member. But if a guy really wants to meet a non-paying member, he could send a quick note or wink hoping they sign up. I’ve never used match, but it just seems like a waste of time for guys, or you just have to wait around for a paying female to contact you back. Its fraud if you lie or don’t show who you can or cannot message. A customer is paying for a service that allows for two-way communication. What’s the point of paying for a phone when there is no one to call.
I would think it would be easy to display whether someone is an actively paying member or a non-paying member. It would be a waste of time to craft an e-mail and send it to a non-paying member. But if a guy really wants to meet a non-paying member, he could send a quick note or wink hoping they sign up. I’ve never used match, but it just seems like a waste of time for guys, or you just have to wait around for a paying female to contact you back. Its fraud if you lie or don’t show who you can or cannot message. A customer is paying for a service that allows for two-way communication. What’s the point of paying for a phone when there is no one to call.
Someone needs to get the arrow in their back, it might as well be pioneer Match.com. They know they’re guilty, which is why they’re ignoring the merits of the lawsuit.
But there’s a potential future problem in that if dating sites have to start revealing how many women are actually non-paying members, they’re going to lose massive amounts of revenue as it is still traditional for men to make the aggressive effort and the women the laid-back choosing.
A better approach than relying on cognitive dissonance subterfuge would be to make the men pay but allow the women to join as a full member for free and ramp up the fraud detection big time. It would level the playing field.
Someone needs to get the arrow in their back, it might as well be pioneer Match.com. They know they’re guilty, which is why they’re ignoring the merits of the lawsuit.
But there’s a potential future problem in that if dating sites have to start revealing how many women are actually non-paying members, they’re going to lose massive amounts of revenue as it is still traditional for men to make the aggressive effort and the women the laid-back choosing.
A better approach than relying on cognitive dissonance subterfuge would be to make the men pay but allow the women to join as a full member for free and ramp up the fraud detection big time. It would level the playing field.
I always have this discussion with my friends as I’ve used many dating websites such as match.com for years now. Funny thing is I paid for match.com yet met very few women or got very few responses the whole time I was on it (Roughly 8 months if I remember correctly). Now that I use free dating websites I get 10 times the amount of responses.
I always have this discussion with my friends as I’ve used many dating websites such as match.com for years now. Funny thing is I paid for match.com yet met very few women or got very few responses the whole time I was on it (Roughly 8 months if I remember correctly). Now that I use free dating websites I get 10 times the amount of responses.
This is classic “grow big at all costs and then deal with consequences later when the coffers are full” strategy. Most large companies operate this way. If you’re not in court you’re not pushing the envelop enough and leaving money on the table.
This will be a pretty big settlement for Match to deal with if it gets any traction.
This type of issue will go away in a few years when transparency becomes more prevalent and monolithic dating fade into the sunset.
More fuel for the argument that a new online dating model is desperately needed.
This is classic “grow big at all costs and then deal with consequences later when the coffers are full” strategy. Most large companies operate this way. If you’re not in court you’re not pushing the envelop enough and leaving money on the table.
This will be a pretty big settlement for Match to deal with if it gets any traction.
This type of issue will go away in a few years when transparency becomes more prevalent and monolithic dating fade into the sunset.
More fuel for the argument that a new online dating model is desperately needed.
My account expired a few days ago, and today I received 3 emails from Match.com notifying me each time that I’ve received mail from another member and that I should sign up again to read it. Isn’t this a complete contradiction to Match’s response above that they don’t keep inactive member profiles up????!!!!
My account expired a few days ago, and today I received 3 emails from Match.com notifying me each time that I’ve received mail from another member and that I should sign up again to read it. Isn’t this a complete contradiction to Match’s response above that they don’t keep inactive member profiles up????!!!!
We remove users who haven’t logged in for two months. It doesn’t have to be harder than that.
We remove users who haven’t logged in for two months. It doesn’t have to be harder than that.