Are Match.com Inactive Profiles Grounds for a Lawsuit?

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On December 30, 2010, Match.com had a a federal lawsuit filed against it that alleges that the majority of profiles belong to scammers or are inactive members. Check this article out for the details. From the suit itself:

While Match purports to have “millions” of active subscribers, well over half of the profiles on its site belong to inactive members who have cancelled their membership or allowed their subscriptions to lapse and/or are fake and fraudulent profiles posted by scammers and others. To the extent these types of profiles do not belong to the scammers that proliferate the site, the rest are unreachable by legitimate users attempting to avail themselves of the services offered by Match and paid for via subscription fees.

I understand that scammers are a bad thing and if any service could be proven to be willingly allowing scammers to thrive, that’s definitely a problem. I have my doubts that this lawsuit is really going to be attempting to prove this but with the claim that the scammers “proliferate” the site, I might be wrong on that one.

That said, the thing that really jumps out to me is the idea that inactive profiles are worthy of a lawsuit and if my guess is correct this will be the majority of the suit.

Are Inactive Profiles Really A Good Argument?

I should first point out for those who don’t know that I met my wife on Match.com. Obviously because of this I’m a big fan and found the service very helpful, so I guess you could say I’m biased.

My bias aside: is it really a strong argument to complain about inactive profiles? I see a few problems with this type of argument.

First, Match.com makes it clear how long it has been since someone last logged in. As a matter of fact, I just logged in to verify that my memory was correct and not only does it show you the last time the user was active but the searches actually place inactive users (anyone who hasn’t used the service within 3 weeks) at the end of the results. It’s pretty simple to see who is active and who isn’t long before you subscribe.

Second, there seems to be an argument that if someone unsubscribes that their profile should be removed. The problem I see with this is that I took breaks from Match.com several times but the last thing I wanted was for my profile to be deleted. I still wanted my profile visible. If a woman was interested in me and wanted to contact me, I wanted to know if I was paying or not. If Match.com deleted my profile, I would have been really upset about that.

To me, inactive profiles are an okay thing especially when the service makes it clear who is active and who isn’t.

The Unreachable

I’ve had the privilege of working with many people over the years as I’ve run this website. I can tell you that many of people, myself included, do a poor job of representing themselves with their online dating profile and interactions, especially early on. This is why I wrote my guide and it’s also why I encourage everyone to be committed to online dating if you’re going to try it. Don’t try it for 30 days and then say that online dating (or in this case, Match.com) doesn’t work!

Basically the last part of the lawsuit seems to be saying that the only reasonable explanation that a person wouldn’t have success (outside of inactive users and scammers) is because the service doesn’t work. My experience suggests otherwise. I dated online actively for about 9 months before I started having success. Was Match.com horrible when I started dating online and then 9 months later did the service improve dramatically or was it me who was improving? I can assure you it was the second. Some of the things I included in my profile and emails in the beginning guaranteed I wasn’t going to have success…although I had no idea at the time!

While I did struggle for a long time with Match.com, when I improved my online dating approach I was averaging two first dates a week. Yes, there were times that I did see Match.com as the problem but now I realize the service wasn’t the problem at all. Perhaps I’m the exception and this lawsuit will prove what it claims…but I seriously doubt it.

 

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About the Author:

Brad initially struggled with online dating but over time became quite successful using it. He met his wife using online dating and has been giving advice and helping people improve their results since 2007. He has written a Free Online Dating Guide to help others find success with online dating. You can learn more about his personal experience using online dating and running this website here.

Comments

  1. k  April 19, 2013

    Hi Brad,

    I have a huge issue ( Or potential issue) with Match.com. My current gf and her friend were apparently playing around on the friend’s profile and allegedly came across my profile. The issue is I haven’t had a profile active since 2011. According to my now enraged girlfriend it said that the profile had been active within the week. Clearly it had not, and my girlfriend did not believe me in the least bit. So I called the customer care hotline and pleaded for help from the rep. He was excellent and helped me check to see when exactly I had cancelled and if it was at all possible that the account was being used or manipulated. He explained it was not and that it should be “hidden” and no user should be able to see it. So he sent me an email confirming all this to show my gf ( Who still doesn’t believe me). Her argument is that the profile has since disappeared. I’m curious if they did in fact keep my profile up and make it seem as if it had been used. It has caused me a crazy amount of grief and upset my girlfriend beyond belief. I wonder if you think they actually kept my profile up as if it was active or even that there is a possibility that someone stole my images?

    Thanks any insight would help

    • Brad  April 20, 2013

      Hi K – well, this is a tricky one to answer. I doubt that someone stole your images and don’t believe that Match would use your account for their gain (really no need because they’re so large). A couple of questions: do you get emails from Match.com? Opening them if you do has been reported to show you as online, so that might explain why you’d appear online. Also, how did your girlfriend/her friend access your profile? The only ways I’m aware that someone would be able to access a hidden profile is 1) if you had previously had emails with them, they could click the email to see your profile or 2) if they had added you as a favorite, even hiding your profile wouldn’t prevent that person from seeing it.

      I’m assuming your girlfriend’s friend wasn’t accessing your profile through either of those methods so I’m honestly not sure how it would happen. Would the match.com rep be able to confirm how long your profile had been hidden? If you could prove it’s been hidden for a long time, perhaps that would help your girlfriend feel better about things?

      I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of a hidden profile being viewable so sorry I don’t have more direction to give on this one.