I am always amazed at how many people try to use the anonymity of the Internet as a means of deceit. On a dating site, these “frauds” will send out 100 emails for every 1 sent out by a “real” user. This means, that if even only 1% of a dating site’s users are frauds, 1 out of every 2 emails you get will be junk! If not kept in check, these frauds will overrun a dating site, quickly rendering it completely unusable by real users.
For this reason, here at Dating DNA, we have a ZERO TOLERANCE policy for Perverts, Fibbers, Fakes, Spammers, and Scammers.
What are each of these groups?
Perverts – These are individuals who aren’t really here to meet anyone compatible for dating or relationships, but rather to get their thrills with casual “hook ups,” nude or suggestive photos and/or obscene messages to others. There are already a million sites like this on the Internet. Dating DNA is NOT for this group.
Fibbers – These are individuals who embellish their profiles so you’ll be interested in them, in the hope that one day they can meet you in person, and THEN convince you what they lied about doesn’t really matter. Typical examples of this are lying about one’s: marital status, age, weight, profession, income, living situation, and so on. At Dating DNA we believe there is someone out there for everyone, and if you’re simply honest about your situation, you’ll find your compatible match.
Fakes – These are sociopaths who create completely fake profiles to engage others in some Internet-only fantasy creation of theirs, with no intention of ever meeting you in person. This is the 50-year old man who pretends to be the 21-year old woman. It’s a strange phenomena that only a psychologist could truly understand, but I’m always amazed at how many of these sociopaths there are on the Internet.
Spammers – These are those who just join to “mine” for your personal email address so they can flood your inbox with junk mail for Viagra and home mortgages, or worse, viruses to infect your computer.
Scammers – The most dangerous of the lot, this group is after your personal information to drain your bank account, steal your identity, and use your credit cards. They may do this by trying to plant spy ware on your computer, or more elaborate schemes to win your confidence over until you start providing the necessary personal information for them to take advantage of you financially. Scammers may also ask you to send them money (maybe for a flight ticket to come visit you, etc.), or facilitate in the transfer of money or products.
Wow, sounds scary! Maybe I shouldn’t meet people online?
It’s only scary if you and the site you’re on aren’t careful. However, if we work together, these frauds will go away and find a home elsewhere.
What does Dating DNA do to keep the frauds off the site?
As I mentioned, here at Dating DNA, we have a ZERO TOLERANCE policy for Perverts, Fibbers, Fakes, Spammers, and Scammers. We loathe and despise them, and work hard to keep them far, far away from our site. This can be particularly challenging because we are a free site, so it costs the frauds nothing to use our site for their deceitful acts. The good news, however, is because our site is free, this also allows us to hit the delete key on an account without a second’s thought. If we suspect someone of inappropriate behavior on our site, their account is immediately closed. Paid sites have to do all sorts of “investigations,” since they took your money. Not us. If you cross the line here, we delete your account. Period. We don’t want the 1% of frauds to ruin it for the 99% of honest singles using the site. If we suspect there is financial fraud involved, we also report them to the appropriate government and policing agencies. So, Perverts, Fibbers, Fakes, Spammers, and Scammers should be put on notice: Dating DNA is NOT fertile ground for your practices. You will simply waste a lot of time creating a profile and sending out emails, just to have your profile and emails deleted.
Dating DNA has a very sophisticated system of early detection for frauds. Most won’t get even a few emails out before their account is closed. We’re constantly improving our system, and you can help…
What can you do to protect yourself?
As good as our system is, you could still get one of the few emails that sneaks through from a fraud. There are six things you can do to help protect yourself, and help us keep the site fraud-clean:
1. Don’t give out your personal email address to anyone on the site until after you are very confident they are legit. Most frauds will give you their email address very early in the process, and encourage you to contact them there. They do this because if you email them, they now have your email address and can start contacting you directly. Dating DNA has a very good messaging system that protects your privacy, is easy to use, keeps a great history of your conversations, etc., so there is no reason to give someone your email address early on.
2. NEVER give out personal information to someone that could be used to gain access to your financial accounts (passwords, social security numbers, home address, date of birth, etc.).
3. NEVER send money to anyone. This may seem obvious, but it’s easy to fall pray to the fake photo of a beautiful person who wants to fly to come visit you, but they say they need you to just help them pay for the ticket. There is absolutely NO good reason to ever send money or goods to someone you don’t know.
4. Report anyone you even remotely suspect of being a fibber, fake, spammer, or scammer. There is a “Report” button just above new messages you receive. If you get a message that sounds a little fishy, click the Report button and let us know. We’ll investigate and remove the user if necessary. Your help in reporting frauds will help keep the site clean of these annoying accounts.
5. Trust your instincts. If someone seems too good to be true, they probably are. If you’re a 50 year old man, and a gorgeous 20 year old girl living thousands of miles away is falling all over you, telling you how special you are, it just might be an overseas male scammer looking to take advantage of you.
6. Look for evidence that the person is for real. Does their profile have links to MySpace, Facebook, or other social networking pages with lots of their photos, friends, etc.? Have they posted videos of themselves? Will they let you have a live video chat with them? A video call is a great way to verify that people are in fact who they say they are. Skype and other free video call services are easy to install and use.
In conclusion…
The Internet is a great place to find an apartment, buy a car, find a job, sell your house…it SHOULD be just as great of a place to meet someone to date, and it can be, if we work together to keep the frauds off our site!
Thanks,
Kevin Carmony
Founder, Dating DNA
DNA# 123-456-789
(I intentionally keep my Threshold set at 1, so feel free to
add me to your strand and shoot me an email anytime.)
June 28, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Thank you for paying attention to this. I use to use the personal ads on Craigslist, but it is nothing but fakes trying to get my email address. Because they let it get out of hand, it’s completely worthless now.
Keep up the good work!
Scott
June 28, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Yes, THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!!!
June 28, 2008 at 2:59 pm
I’ve found that most people on Dating DNA are real. Yes, a few have fibbed about their age or weight, but I do think the site does a good job of keeping out the spammers and frauds.
Kudos!
Andrea
DNA#: 139-495-683
June 28, 2008 at 4:18 pm
This site seems to be the answer to my prayers! Finally a site that matches people based on specific metrics reduced to a single nine digit “digital dna” sequence!
It’s too bad that the user base is so far very tiny. I hope in time and with a lot of luck it could evolve into something so much more!
As great as social networking sites are (myspace/facebook) have zero functionally when it comes to dating. Established sites such as paid services like Match.com refuse to change their business model and “open” up enough to where more people would actually pay to use it.
So it is with supreme irony that the successes of the internet and web 2.0 have actually killed internet dating. It will take no less than a whopping miracle for something to come along and revive the spirit of what internet dating once was or could have been.
June 28, 2008 at 4:58 pm
You’re spot on Bo. We saw all the same things you’ve been seeing, and have been working hard on the technical side of things, and are now getting ready to move our attention more aggressively to marketing.
I’ve started lots of businesses. There are always three layers that need to grow, IN UNISON, one can’t get too far ahead of the other. These layers are: 1) the technology, 2) the Channel, and 3) the Customer. You can have the best technology in the world, but if you don’t grow the customers, it will die. Likewise, you can market your little heart out, get tons of users, but if the technology doesn’t work for these users, they will leave and you will die (true.com).
Dating DNA has tried to grow our user base gently, as we’ve improved the technology. I feel great about the pace at which we’ve grown. The technology has gotten a lot better (and lots more to come), so time now for us to do more with our marketing.
Kevin
Founder, Dating DNA
Dating DNA User 123-456-789
July 24, 2008 at 7:14 pm
[...] post to our Chat Walls at anytime, there’s no need to park in a “room,” and since we execute frauds and spammers at Dating DNA, you know everyone is real. So you see, our Chat Walls solve all three of the big problems with [...]
December 28, 2008 at 3:30 pm
You also seem to be an antidote to the sites with bogus users working for the site who send you messages enticing you to become a paid member so you can reply.
July 15, 2009 at 11:15 am
You are very perfect keep it up …