Editorial: The Online Dating Industry

It is a sad truth that the dating industry continues to turn a blind eye to many of the solutions that could prevent their websites from being polluted with scammers.

Image recognition that could recognize previously use faces is but one that would not be hard to implement. Pattern recognition, grammar testing, IP address filtering, repeated use of phone numbers and email addresses, are all things that could be screened for.

Please these website engage in questionable business practices that in some cases might be fraudulent themselves. But the industry is protected by their terms and conditions. So that as long as you continue to use them, they benefit and you lose.

What the industry needs are alternative sites run by people that understand how scammers work, with simple models that do not cheat their subscribers.

Editorial: The Online Dating Industry 1

Until that day, you should avoid almost all dating websites!
PERIOD!

In the interest of full disclosure, there are some sites that are making an effort. SCARS/RSN has lectured to the industry through events such as iDate in the interest of getting them to use more of the scammer reports that SCARS has collected, however, not enough sites are using reported scammer data yet. We encourage them to do so NOW! The SCARS network database is the only real-time scammer data available to the dating industry, but most dating websites prefer to use unreliable algorithms instead of real data to stop scammers, since real data cuts down on the number of subscribers too much for their liking.