Match.com being sued for sending its employees on fake dates with clients. the lawsuit claims Match.com is engaged in racketeering, and in violation of the RICO act.
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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, is accused in a federal lawsuit of goading members into renewing their subscriptions through bogus romantic emails 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.
H Scott Leviant, a lawyer at Los Angeles law firm Arias, Ozzello & Gignac, which brought the suit, said: "This is a grossly fraudulent practice that Match.com is engaged in."
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 a Match spokeswoman said the company "absolutely does not" employ people to go on dates with subscribers or to send members misleading emails professing romantic interest. The company has about 15 million members worldwide and 250 employees, she said.
In a separate suit, Yahoo!'s personals service is accused of posting profiles of fictitious potential dating partners on its website to make it look as though many more singles subscribe to the service than actually do.
Yahoo! did not respond to requests for comment.
The suits, which both seek class-action status, come as growth in the online dating industry has slowed, though web matchmaking still remains a big business.
US consumers spent $245.2m on online personals and dating services in the first half of 2005, up 7.6 per cent from a year earlier, according to the Online Publishers Association. That's a slower growth rate compared with several years ago.
At the same time, competition among online dating services is fierce, with some sites offering newfangled features such as extensive compatibility surveys to match up people with similar temperaments and outlooks.
The Match lawsuit was filed earlier this month in US District Court in Los Angeles by plaintiff Matthew Evans, who contends he went out with a woman he met through the site who turned out to be nothing more than "date bait" working for the company.
The relationship went nowhere, according to his suit. Evans says Match set up the date for him because it wanted to keep him from pulling the plug on his subscription and was hoping he'd tell other potential members about the attractive woman he met through the service, according to Leviant.
His lawyers said Evans, of Orange County, California, was not available to comment, but they described him as a working professional in his 30s.
Leviant said his client found out about the alleged scam after the woman he dated confessed she was employed by Match. The lawsuit also claims the company violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, a law best known for being used in prosecuting organised crime.
The Yahoo! suit was filed last month by Robert Anthony, of Broward County, Florida. The suit, brought in US District Court in San Jose, California, accuses the company of breach of contract, fraud and unfair trade practices.
Anthony's lawyer, Peter McNulty of the McNulty Law Firm in Bel Air, California, did not respond to requests for comment.
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