Match.com and Yahoo! Have Dates in Court
Earlier this month, on November 10th, a racketeering lawsuit was filed against Match.com, a popular online dating service. Match.com, a division of IAC/Interactive, is being accused of trying to lure customers into renewing their subscriptions through the use of fake romantic e-mails sent by their employees.
The lawsuit even declares that employees on Match’s payroll actually went on dates with subscribers in order to lure them into renewing their subscriptions and spreading good buzz to their friends who might potentially join the dating network. Match is accused of setting up these bogus dates up to 100 times a month, or three times per day.
H. Scott Leviant, a lawyer at the Los Angeles-based law firm Arias, Ozzello & Gignac, which brought the lawsuit against Match, stated, “This is a grossly fraudulent practice that Match.com is engaged in,” and that Match “promotes the policies of integrity to protect members, and yet they themselves, we allege, are misleading their entire customer base.”
The lawsuit also asserts that “Hiding behind Match.com’s portrait of online success is a very big, very dirty secret. Not everyone you meet and date through Match.com is just another Match.com member.”
Though the company said it does not officially comment on pending litigation, spokeswoman Kristin Kelly said Match.com “absolutely does not” employ people to go on misleading dates with subscribers or send members bogus romantic e-mails, and went on to call the lawsuit “completely without merit.” Kelly said that the suit would be fought “vigorously.”
To support her claims, Kelly went on to say that a survey showed that 12% of last year’s marriages resulted from people meeting their mate online, and that membership increased 19% over last year, showing that the company had no need to conjure up deceiving shams in order to help their business.
The lawsuit was filed by Match.com customer Matthew Evans of Orange County, California, who is looking to push the suit to become a class action on behalf of Match’s 15 million members and their 1 million subscribers. According to his lawyers, the Match employee eventually confessed to Evans that she was an employee of the company after a number of dates.
Match employees are accused of reading customers’ e-mails to each other. The lawsuit states that “The paid Match.com employee then goes on a date with the subscriber, gives the deceptive appearance of having a lot in common with the subscriber [due in part to having read his or her E-mails] with the intent of luring the subscriber into re-signing with Match.com.”
In another lawsuit, Yahoo!’s personals service has been accused of posting fake profiles of fabricated potential partners on its site in order to falsely inflate the number of single people who actually subscribe to the online dating service. This suit was filed last month by Robert Anthony of Broward County, Florida, who is also seeking class-action status.
In the first half of 2005, American consumers spent $245.2 million on online personals and dating services, which is a 7.6% increase from the previous year, according to the Online Publishers Association.
Sources:
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/
story/367167p-312443c.html
http://news.com.com/Suit+claims+
Match.com+set+up+fake+dates/2100-
1038_3-5960986.html
