Match.com linked daters to fake accounts to increase subscriptions, US regulators say
Match.com may have linked non-paying dates to fake accounts just to have them subscribe, according to federal regulators. In a lawsuit filed today against the Match Group, the Federal Trade Commission claims the company linked Match.com dates to fake accounts in an attempt to get them to subscribe. The case suggests the blurred line between genuine useful notifications and those that give rise to people's curiosity to make money from a service.
Non-paying Match.com users cannot view or respond to messages they receive on the service, but when they do receive one, Match.com emails them to notify them and encourages them to subscribe to see the message.
The FTC claims that Match hundreds of thousands of cases notified dating notifications even after the company discovered that the account sending the message was fraudulent. When these people subscribed, they opened the message to see that the user had already been banned or days later would be banned for fraud on the platform, the lawsuit states. When these users then complained to Match.com or tried to get their money back, Match.com denied any wrongdoing.
FTC claims this behavior led to 499,691[ads1] new subscriptions, all traced back to fraudulent communications, between June 2016 and May 2018. The lawsuit also claims that These automatically generated email notifications were often withheld from paying subscribers until Match.com conducted a fraud assessment. However, the ad was reportedly automatically e-mailed to non-paying users.
Until mid-2019, Match.com offered a free six-month subscription to anyone who did not "meet anyone special" during the first six months on the platform. The program came up with a long list of rules, including that users had to submit their picture and get it approved by Match.com within seven days of purchasing the subscription. The FTC claims that between 2013 and 2016, people bought 2.5 million subscriptions, but only 32,438 received the subsequent free six months. Match.com reportedly billed 1 million people after completing their first six-month package to extend the subscription.
The FTC also claims Match.com made it very difficult to cancel a subscription – canceling requires over six clicks, according to the complaint. Match.com has also allegedly locked people out of their accounts after disputing charges, even though they lost the dispute and had time left in the subscription. The FTC seeks financial relief for consumers who lost money from the company's practices.
. Match Group did not immediately respond to comment. when reached within The Verge . However, Match.com CEO Hesam Hosseini has already spoken out against the allegations internally, sending an email to executives earlier today who rejected the FTC's allegations.
"The FTC is likely to make conclusive allegations that ignore all Match's efforts to prioritize the customer experience, including our efforts to combat fraud," Hosseini wrote.
In the email, Hosseini said the company detects and neutralizes 85 percent of fake accounts within the first four hours of their existence and 95 percent of them within a day. He also argued for the accounts that the FTC defines as fraudulently unrelated to fraud, but rather bots, spam and people trying to sell a service on Match.com.
"I think the FTC has fundamentally misunderstood our work here, and we intend to fight all claims."
