Ever Wonder About Fake Dating Profiles?
Ever wonder if that person you are messaging on certain dating sites a real flesh and blood people?
Don’t be surprised if the person either doesn’t respond or keeps leading you on until you decide to sign up and utilize their instant chat service by becoming a member.
Online Dating Is Big Business
Dating sites are big business and the market is so saturated that the competition to keep up is stiff.
Companies are vying for financial gains by recruiting and maintaining new members. This is not to say that users can’t have success with dating sites, they just need to be on the lookout for fake profiles.
Do some research and start with the free dating services before committing to a paid subscription.
Some network sites make money from advertisements and member communication, while others like to inflate their member base to make it look as though users have plenty of matches to choose from.
Females Are Often Fakes
Do you know who you’re chatting with, really?
Another theory is that dating sites want to gauge how many members are trying to collect on a 3 or 6 month guarantee.
Members have to reply back to all inquiries or else most companies will not back their site guarantee.
There is more than one kind of fake profile.
Some have one word answers and minimal information and others have exaggerated information with lots of interesting details. Scammers make quick use out of the exaggerated fake profiles in order to make money for the profile owner.
This type of scammer is typically either an escort service or port site trying to woo members with gorgeous photos and wild propositions.
Pay For Real Dating If You Want More
This is a common deceptive move and is focused on members with fetishes or plenty of money to spend on webcams and chat time. You would think these profiles would be blatantly obvious, but not always.
They can sometimes be hard to spot.
Another type of scammer that utilizes fake profiles are identity theft predators. They convince members to chat with them outside of the dating service site in order to get you to install chat software or special toolbar.
A lot of people have fallen for this hook, line and sinker.
They establish a connection with what they think is a real person and so they trust them enough to go the extra mile in order to maintain communication.
‘Spot The Fake Profile’ Tips
Here are a couple of guided tips to follow when trying to spot fake profiles.
It can be a minefield so you need to research these potentially fake profiles, to keep safe.
The following should raise a red flag and clue you in on when to end communication or block certain users from contacting you.
- Prospective matches might try and request an external e-mail address where they can contact you.
- Prospective matches might tell you they are a U.S. citizen, but that they live with relatives outside of the U.S.
- Prospective matches might tell you that their profile will be soon expiring and that you will have to chat with them outside of the dating site.
- If you notice that a prospective match profile is overly stuffed with emotion and sad stories.
Beware of profile creators who seek only to drain you of money or steal your personal information using creative and deceptive techniques. It makes sense to choose your dating sites wisely and proceed with cautious optimism.
Keep your friends close and your fake profiles at an arm’s length.
Speak Your Mind, With Your Opinion
Nice to see you made it to the end of the post. Here’s what you can do next:
- Have you ever had a fake profile experience?
- What’s one thing you’d keep secret in a profile?
- Click one of the Share buttons – your friends can then enjoy this article too.
And thanks for reading too – Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
About the Author:
Tiersa writes for www.onlinedatingsites.net and enjoys writing about todays modern dating dilemmas and the unseen quirky side of relationships and dating sites.
GuestAccount – who has written 61 posts on GeekandJock.
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natasha
in evrey dating website you will find fake profiles and scammers! but you will also find genuine profiles of serius women who are looking for serius men, just be careful and dont give important information online (credit cards numbers, bank account etc…)
Martin
Twitter: GeekandJock
Welcome Natasha and thanks for the comment too.
I think the main first things to keep in mind, as you say, are to ALWAYS be careful and be honest too.
Have you used Online Dating yourself?
natasha
i used to but now i have a boyfriend
Martin
Twitter: GeekandJock
Just curious, did you meet him on a dating site as well?
Martin recently posted..Why Good Guys Finish First and Usually Suck As Backstabbers
Johny Moor
There are a lots of scammers who use fake details and use to chat with them. That is so bad for someone who want to find friend or maybe a relationship.
Martin
Twitter: GeekandJock
Thanks for the visit and comment, Johny.
Scammers are an unfortunate part of life – they pervade everywhere including places where people want to find love.
Just gotta take a bit of care.
africadatingsites
There are lot of scammers who use fake details and use to chat with them but our dating site has success stories which you can have a look and then sign up with us.
Martin
Twitter: GeekandJock
You know, it's becoming increasingly obviously that most (if not all) dating sites use some form of deception in getting people to sign up and pay. While I certainly appreciate your comments, I can't help but wonder whether I'd get each and all options for your site for free.
And if I didn't, want kind of marketing or incentives you'd wave in front of my nose to intice me to hand over my credit card.
Care to comment on that?
My recent post Top 5 Ways to Make It In A Long Distance Relationship
Kubbard
My best friend signed up to plenty of fish and has subsequently found a profile with the same user name and identical details on Flirtbox. Do these sites share information and create duplicate sites without your approval?
Thanks
Martin
Twitter: GeekandJock
Thanks for sharing this, Kubbard.
I've used Plenty of Fish some time ago before I met and married Pam. I found the site itself to be reputable. I'd suggest the duplicate profiles are probably done by the the person themselves, replicating on two sites as opposed to some conspiracy between the sites you mentioned.
How did you best friend find these sites? Any success at all?
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stacyshelves
Some of the well-known paid dating sites aren't too bad. Depending on your demographic, Plentyoffish and OkCupid work wonders for people as well and are free. Being in technology for awhile, I have heard a lot of stories about dating sites trying to lure people in with fake profiles, which I think is pretty detrimental to their long-term success. I have even heard some stories about certain dating companies being sold and then the buying company only found out later that there were so many fake profiles on there. This behavior isn't unexpected though because more and more businesses are using this type of tactic to try and promote themselves. You can see how many companies there are listed at http://www.buyfacebookfansreviews.com that do this type of practice for instance. In a down economy you're going to have to pay attention to this kind of thing more and more as a consumer. Regarding how dating sites work, unless you're well off and have a lot more money than time, I don't think there's much of a point to paying for a dating site when you can use OkCupid (particularly if you're younger and live in a big city) for free. However, using a reputable paid service might help weed out people you wouldn't be interested in, so it does have that in its favor. In the end though, online dating is just one way to meet somebody, and you can also take up interest in a club or do some charity work and meet somebody IRL that matches your character and interests as well and a lot of people dismiss that option too easily.
Martin
Twitter: GeekandJock
Nice comment, Stacy.
Yeah, I used a number of those sites years ago, prior to meeting my current wife / sexy thang.
Funnily enough, I found PlentyOfFish to full of Players I.e woman looking for some quick sex. Kinda not my scene and wasn't then either.
Neither was the pub or club scene. Great point that you make about common interests though. At least that way, it's more than just superficial yabber over too many drinks :)
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Qoolman1
Thanks for the nice article.
Yes, most owners of those websites are just vampires, I have invested more than $2000 but never managed to pull one real relationship, fed up now, I've registered a domain, uploaded the website, and it is and it will be free to use, hopefully I get people to visit the website and that the website won't get hacked.
Martin
Twitter: GeekandJock
Can you let us know the dating websites that you did visit? I'm sure it will serve as a potential warning for others too.
I'm curious too, did you get to actually go out on any dates, with that $2000 investment?
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Angel Collins
There are really a lot of mischievous people now a days. They tend to trick or mislead people by showing good intentions then after that you will soon realize that their real purpose is to betray or use you. Very nice post!.
Martin
Twitter: GeekandJock
Hi Angel. I missed your comment so thank you for that.
Are you referring to people you've met on a date that are misleading you or are these dating site owners doing that?
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Anonymous
I did a free sign up to a dating site and within 24 hours I had messages from 3 local ladies or couples all of whom had left nice comments on eachothers profiles amongst other comments received as being genuine and not time wasters. The site allowed communications but would block email addresses or numbers. The lady wanted to meet so I signed up and then all correspondense ended with her profile and the other couples. What a scam.
TheGeek
Twitter: GeekandJock
From my early online dating experiences (which were all pretty much crap), the object of their game is in luring people into their site with free stuff.
Once they've got you in, you'll get all sorts of offers from matches you'd think unlikely BUT really interesting – maybe extremely attractive, very rich, wildly sexual – extreme offers that seem too good to be true. Because they are!
Online dating is huge money designed, mostly, to suck your money. There's lots more opportunity out there which I describe in my eBook that are far more level headed, have integrity and operate with a high degree of transparency too.
Sad you had to learn the lesson the way you did. Glad you came out of it reasonably unscathed though. Best of luck in the future and thanks so much for visiting and commenting too.
Lance T
Honestly, I just keep to the well-known paid sites and the two big free sites: POF and OKCupid. So far, things have been good, whether paid or free. Seriously, if you're a guy, unless you're ridiculously good looking, girls usually don't send the first message. You gotta do that yourself haha.
That's why I felt something was fishy when you said you had responses that quick. Stick to the trusted dating sites and just keep playing the numbers game.
Brett
Twitter: cityswoon
Hi,
I own two dating sites. And as an owner with integrity, this is a real problem. I would say 30-40% of sign ups are fakes. We moderate our site too for all inappropriate messages/behaviour. It is bad for the industry to hear of these scams by dating sites. Basically, if it sounds like a scam it is a scam, beware.
However, we were so annoyed about it, we have set up a new dating site that simply cannot have fake profiles. We are launching soon – only in Australia at the moment. We think its quite a novel and innovative idea and goes a long way towards resolving these issues.
Very thorough article btw. Thanks.
Martin
Twitter: GeekandJock
How’s the dating sites coming along, Brett?
The big question is though is how can you possibly prevent fake profiles from being created?
If someone wants to do it, they’ll find a way. Scam brings in a small percentage of ham so they simply multiply efforts for lots of scam ham :)
Martin recently posted..Dating 101 – How to Prepare for a First Date
Brett
Twitter: cityswoon
Hi, Thanks for the reply and your question! I guess I was being a little facetious when I said there can be no fake profiles, because our site has no visible profiles!! So, some people could lie about their underlying profile…
However, members can only meet via REAL anonymous dates that they create and schedule! So, If your profile is fake, it won’t fly for long.
We also validate all members via sms. This is part of our identification process before members date. But, it knocks out more than 99% of the overseas scammers/fakes. Why don’t the large dating sites do this? I’ll leave that question open ended…
But you are right, overseas scammers will try anything and soon they might even crack sms validation. And there are local scammers too. But you won’t get someone flying from Nigeria to your local cafe, so you are very unlikely to meet them on our site!
Anyway, we are launching officially very soon, so I’ll keep you posted. To date, we’ve had a lot of interest.
We are fans of your site too!
Cheers,
Brett
Brett recently posted..Dating: Which Venue to Choose for Your Date?
Martin
Twitter: GeekandJock
Wow, you really going all out in the fight against scammers, Brett – which is a great thing for the Mr and Ms Dating-Online too.
We just recently installed our own dating plugin, as a bit of an experiment in Social Activity so it’ll be interesting to see how that goes.
And please do pop on back and let us know when you launch too.
Martin recently posted..Meeting People and Dating Members
Igor
I have even seen companies hire people to "lure" guys to sign up for a dating site.
They would make a fake female profile, find their victims in chat rooms, trough msn, facebook or similar, and tell them that they need to connect at a certain dating website.
Once a guy signs up, dating company gets its money, the scammer (called e-whore) gets paid, and the poor victim left with a few bucks less and disappointed.
Martin
Twitter: GeekandJock
Oh, i think that’s almost standard practise in this dating industry, for commercial dating sites, Igor.
I remember doing some research and signing up to a couple of ‘free’ trials. Took me months to get off their mailing lists. Actually I don’t think I ever did but just shifted their incoming emails into the Spam folder.
Thank goodness I never parted with any credit card info – I can only imagine what nasty stuff might have happened.
Have you ever been caught like this yourself?
Martin recently posted..Foolproof Solutions to the 5 Biggest Online Dating Challenges
Anonymous
Yes it certainly is a learning experience. I cant believe that I fell for it! They are very clever in some ways… but I did feel wary all along because the person was so full on for someone I had not yet met. One thing I did notice that you could add to your list of 'sign' would be that when you offer personal/everyday information about yourself they don't really respond and comment on it as a normal person would … that is … either with specific practical advice or some sort of direct emotional response/comment on your little personal story. Also they stick to emails rather than asking for an online chat…. well this particular guy anyway. It would be much harder for a man to pull the wool over your eyes on chat. Chat always makes it very clear as to where a guy is at. Anyway thanks again for your advice and comments!
Anonymous
I think I have a guy who is trying to scam me… from the site ClickandFlirt…. his initial profile name was guy2mel. I have become suspicious because of the poetic claims of deep undying love and now he is in Nigeria with his mother who is in hospital having breast cancer surgery. The surgery is of course costing lots of money and he is rapidly running out of money. He has given me a couple of phone numbers and he has mine but has never rung. I tried sending a text to the one he has in Africa but have had no response. His pic is of a white guy supposedly living in Melbourne with business and family links to Africa… importing cocoa.
TheGeek
Twitter: GeekandJock
Wow, I read that and immediately thought that all those signs point directly to a Nigerian scam.
Have a read of a past blog post on Facebook scamming techniques – my wife received this some time ago and I explain why it's so easy for these guys/girls to trick people into handing over their cash. The butter you up first, lead you on, give you a sob story and ask for money i.e. build up some form of trusting relationship which sucks you into departing with your cash.
If you've already tried contacting him on numbers he's given you and he's failed to contact you back, I would suggest all the signs are there that this is, indeed, a con job.
Anonymous
Yes thanks for your quick reply. I was thinking that it was all just too over the top… you know … too good to be true…. anyway I expressed my suspicions to him and it will be interesting to see what the reply is! He had not asked for money yet… but I could see it coming…
TheGeek
Twitter: GeekandJock
If it looks like a scam and smells like a scam then ….
There's plenty of other fish in the sea – thousands of perfect partners just for you so take this as a learning experience and move on to someone with integrity as well as someone you can trust and verify. It's very common these days to get contacted by people in countries like Nigeria and Ghana who try to get inside your head and form a relationship, just to con and scam you.
Thanks again for commenting and visiting our site too – very much appreciated.
Misty Craven
I knew watching out for scammers on dating websites was important, but I guess I didn't realize all that could happen. I'm glad I stumbled upon this article!