As if online dating weren't miserable enough, that super hot chick you've been messaging on Match.com may very well be catfishing you, so you probably shouldn't give her access to your PayPal account or anything. Or so says a new class-action lawsuit against the dating website, which claims hundreds if not millions of profiles are fake and used by criminals oversees to defraud their "matches."
Florida resident Yuliana Avalos, a part-time model and mother, filed the suit in Manhattan federal court yesterday, alleging that her photos have been used on many Match.com profiles and other related dating sites, even though she's not signed up for the service. "Not a day goes by when someone doesn’t tell me that they saw my pictures posted on Match.com or another web site," Avalos said in a statement.
And according to the suit, "thousands of fraudulent profiles" have popped up on the site, using photos belonging to Avalos, " Hollywood celebrities" and other unnamed individuals whose photos were taken from Facebook and modeling sites; it is believed that the profiles are being run by overseas criminals in order to defraud users in the U.S. And it's not just about money, according to the suit: "In addition to the financial and emotional toll, these scams destroy relationships, families, and result in suicides, abductions and murder of victims in foreign countries."
Avalos says operators behind Match.com and parent company IAC/InterActiveCorp of Manhattan know the profiles come from overseas based on their IP addresses, but choose to ignore the matter. The suit seeks $1 billion in punitive damages, $500 million in compensatory damages and an order requiring the company to screen those overseas IP addresses to cut down on the fraud. And as for that honey you've been wooing who looks suspiciously like that model from the J.Crew catalog, well, maybe just stick to dating Netflix instead. It will (almost) never hurt you.
