"My client was degraded and humiliated!!"
Posted on 11/20/2005 9:04:30 AM PST by kingattax
Match.com is accused of sending out bogus romantic e-mails, Yahoo may have posted made up profiles
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. (Research), 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.
"This is a grossly fraudulent practice that Match.com is engaged in," said H. Scott Leviant, a lawyer at Los Angeles law firm Arias, Ozzello & Gignac LLP, which brought the suit.
Match "promotes the policies of integrity to protect members, and yet they themselves, we allege, are misleading their entire customer base," he said.
The company said it does not comment on pending litigation. But Match spokeswoman Kristin Kelly said the company "absolutely does not" employ people to go on dates with subscribers or to send members misleading e-mails professing romantic interest. The company has about 15 million members worldwide and 250 employees, she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
Quick... someone queue a picture of Helen Thomas!
"I'm so desperate, I'd pay [subscription cost for dating service] to go on a date with [random employee of said dating service]."
A new t-shirt...
With all due respect, that's really not fair.
"My client was degraded and humiliated!!"
If this turns out to be true, these companies are going to be owned real bad. It's true that they can't control everything their customers do and online dating is risky at best, but that doesn't make it OK for a company to engage in fraud.
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