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OffwingerHow to Spot a Fake Match.com Profile
By Lance on Aug 1, 2008 in Dating
Since we’ve been talking about online dating a lot–see here and here–I’d like to wade in on the subject of fake online profiles. Yeah, you heard me right, fake profiles. If you haven’t figured this out already, there are tons of fakes, spammers, frauds, and psycho douchebags in the world of online dating. Match is an easier game than trolling around on craigslist, but it’s still not very good.
In Orlando, where I live, I’ll probably identify one fakey out of every 30 profiles. There may actually be a few more than that but sometimes they slip under my radar. I find them pretty easy to identify these days, and I’ll get to that in a bit.
Why the fakes? My theory is that the online sites actually employ people to re-post old, disabled accounts in order to equalise the male-to-female ratio. The ratio is already badly skewed against men, but these fakes give off the impression that there are a few more fish in the sea. I don’t have proof, but if you do a google search on “fake match.com profiles” you’ll see a TON of consumer complaints. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Some fakes might be spammers, and these folks are trying to induce you to send them a real email address. Others are recon profiles that dudes post to see what kind of response they get from other dudes (I’ve done this…it’s insightful). I call this “market testing.” BTW, I want to give some love to the virginious V-carded, who performed this very experiment with interesting results…read his post here. Also, will someone please donk that boy?
Most damning though, and this is conjecture, is that an online site employee would send you a wink or email from a fake account to get you to renew your subscription. Very very shady…oops, I mean fraudalent. I’ve often received what I felt like were fake flirtations when I didn’t have a lot of activity going on with my account.
Anyway, here’s how to spot a fake. I’ll use a match.com profile I found tonight as an example…
Okay, the first and biggest tip-off is that the fakey doesn’t have any additional pictures! NO ONE posts only one picture…it just doesn’t happen. I’ve actually seen fakeys with 2-3 pictures before, but these are rare. Once I see this, I’m on the alert. BTW, that chick is aight but nothin special. Notice she’s sticking her chest out and nothing is really sticking out. Onwards…
Tip-off number two. The fakey has no “In my own words” section! Nada, zilch. Why? Because the friggin’ match.com interns are too lazy to actually write up a bunch of BS interests. When I see this combined with only 1 picture, I’m 99% certain the profile is fake.
Number three. See the shitty writing in the “About me” paragraph. Notice it’s short, generic, lame, and shittily written? Big tip-off there. Watch for a lack of specifics. Check out the very last line: “I hope Match you…” WTF seriously? I bet the match intern amused himself on that one.
Ah, my favorite part of the whole fakey profile, the “About my date” section. Notice the intern here posted a broad height range (5′ to 7′), which is total bullshit. Real chicks are obsessively selective about height ranges (heaven forbid she get seen out with a guy that’s short. “OMG my, like, social value would so plummet.”) and they sure as fuck aren’t going to list 5′0″ as the minimum. Most chicks will look in the 5′8″ to 6′3″ range, with the really hot chicks shifting towards the six-footers as a minimum. Don’t be shocked, but height is one of THE top criterion for females online. If you’re interested in reading about an awesome match.com experiment one dude performed as it pertains to height and looks, see here.
Also, duh, everyone fills in the education, job, and income fields.
So there you go, a handful of tip-offs to separate wheat from chaff. Honestly, I don’t even bat an eye at fakes…all online services have them, and it’s like any other form of dating. There’s a game to be played and the game has pitfalls.
If you root out a fakey, feel free to use the “report a concern” function on the right hand side of the profile.
Well…maybe not the income field
I haven’t seen as many of them today (maybe due to all the complaints and bigger restrictions), but years ago fakes were ALL over the place, especially Yahoo!. I learned these things as well, particularly the profiles with one photo or the profiles that have a large age range for their men (“Seeking Male 18-49″ for example.)
Another thing I started looking out for is to see if the profile has any local references to hangouts or the like. That can still be faked, but the fakers are likely to be too lazy to do research.
I never even thought about fakes, being a woman. To me, it is just a total screening process. A guy who says he wants women 20 -99 or if his geographical range is 50 miles, he obviously isn’t serious about anything but bring a player. If he can’t be bothered to anser each question specifically, if his profile is vague or makes sexual innuendoes, same thing – lazy guy not putting in much effort or thought – nothing would make me think he’d be different in real life. Having pictures without a shirt on is tacky, as are pictures with another woman in them, or where it’s obvious (again) he took them himself with his own camera/poor lighting, and didn’t even go to May Company or a studio portrait for a decent head shot, etc. etc.
If it’s only a head shot and not also one that is full length, you immediately wonder if he’s out of shape.
You’ve got to screen for decent people out of the morass of waste-of-time profiles/people that contact you. I’m sure this applies equally to women as well as men. Also just getting a wonk instead of an e-mail isn’t even worth a response. Either step up to the plate or don’t waste my time playing games.
Out of 500 e-mails I got in the first six weeks from different men, maybe ten of those guys were interesting enough to have me willing to e-talk to them on the phone and agree to meet for lunch at a local restaurant. It’s just a numbers game, and you’ve got to be willing to waste a lot of time to find someone good/truly compatible.
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typo – wink
Loving Annies last blog post..More on Baggage Reclaim
Hahaha!!! This is hilarious. There are definitely fake guy profiles out there too, although from what I hear, not nearly as many as fake female profiles. Whatever, if you’re digging around in the dumpster, you’ve got to expect to find some garbage.
Oh, and you’re totally right, Lance – height is one of the top criteria for girls. I’ve had numerous friends come up to me and say something like, “This cute guy winked at me on Match, but he’s too short. Too bad, because he actually sounded like a nice guy.” Note that “too short” often equates to 5′8″ or shorter (just as Lance mentioned above). Sorry guys, I speak the truth.
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My BF says he is 5′7″ (although he listed his profile on MySpace as 5′8″ when he was dating so that girls wouldn’t dismiss him outright), but I think he is probably 5′6″ at the most. It’s funny how sensitive he is about it.
I don’t think I ever put a height range in on Match. I’ll have to log in sometime and see if my old search is still saved.
I totally agree with the one pic thing especially if it looks like it came out of a picture frame or a new wallet. I think you’re dead on with the about me section too. The only part I might disagree with is the about my date section. I haven’t filled mine in and I’m real…just a little lazy!
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OK, before we get too carried away, I want to make sure that there aren’t any guys under 5′8″ (or even 6′) out there who sprout a new “limiting belief” based on this.
At 5′7″ I was personally able to achieve fantastic success online, culminating in meeting Emily on Match.com. Would my 60-80% response rate have been higher were I 6′2″? Perhaps, but that range actually appears to be a “sweet spot” among guys who have gone through the Online Dating Domination program–regardless of physical appearance. I’ve only had one guy who consistently pulled better than 80%.
It’s important to note that even “Mr. McDreamy” only got less about 10% the response the “average” woman got in the study that was cited. Ultimately, it’s up to a guy to write effective first emails to women in order to achieve any real success online. The profile simply backs up his emails so that the “numbers match”.
That said, I’ve got plenty of guys who come to me for online dating help who are north of 6′ and are still getting zero response. It really is all in the presentation, and that absolutely can be re-engineered.
BTW, key fake indicators (apologies if someone mentioned these already):
1) Talks about sex like a man
2) The “Any Scam”–very vague desires in the “Who I’m Looking For” Section
3) Broken English without explanation, especially in Russian or Nigerian style.
I agree with the one picture policy, but I do believe that sometimes those aren’t so much outright fakes as people with one particular pic that portrays them in an exceptionally positive light. Either way, expect disappointment.
Many such one-off pics are lifted from porn sites, too. Chalk one up for familiarizing oneself with porn actresses. This is yet another great reason to avoid Adult FriendFinder, too.
My personal favorite fakie tipoff of all time was the “woman’s” profile that read, “I’m a one-woman man, and expect you to be the same.” Nice.
Yeah, the fake profiles are terrible. Some of the “winks” I get right after I cancel my account are from women who are 22 and live 80 miles from me. I am 35 and am not even searching for women under the age of 30 and no farther than 30 miles from me. So why was I matched with this woman?
Because I canceled my subscription and the profile has all the hallmarks of a fake. I did my own little investigation and stayed on one more month just to check something out. Her “last log on” time kept getting longer after “she” winked at me. You know “within the last three days” then “within the last two weeks” then right when I let my subscription lapse it said “over 3 weeks”.
I’ve started treating Match as a comedy site like “The Onion”. Good for a laugh but not serious.
Online dating sucks! Haha. This is a funny post. I’ve seen my share of fakes on Match. Here in the Bay Area, they’ll get some hot older chick to post an ad. In one part, the checkbox says she’s liberal. Then in the paragraph of text, it says she’s a conservative and describes in detail what that means to her.
Then when I checked her profile a month later, she went from a blonde to a brunette – and I’m not talking hair die, it was a totally different chick! (The rest of the profile was exactly the same). I complained to match and they took it down without saying a word to me.
Did they put it up? Or was it a spammer? Who knows?
I do know some lesser sites will post fake ads and have even used pics of models, like the model is a member there. Gimme a break!
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I often get the “email as soon as your subscription runs out” from match. Basically, you get an email or a few after your subscription has been idle for a month or so, and you can’t see who sent them until after you sign up again. You return the email when you pay to sign up (making sure that the email has matching grammar and nothing objectionable), only to find out that this person that was REALLY interested in you all of a sudden doesn’t have enough interest to return your email.
It’s basically a scam to keep guys around because they outnumber the women so much – and because (if you look halfway decent) you do eventually meet someone off of there that is real – you don’t realize how much you were scammed.
Ha… I’ve heard of the “recon” profiles…
Pretty smart if you’re having NO LUCK AT ALL… you get to steal some good material from the guys that are good at it (like Scot’s customers… hahaha)… and watch and see what MOST MEN are sending to women…
… apparently it’s pretty bad.
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Aldon – I’ve experienced that exact situation. What a scam! Online dating sucks.
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In my recent article on Match.com, Get Laid While Looking for Love: http://www.thisishowyoudoit.com/blog/category/relatonshipssex/
I wrote about how many people are on Match just looking for action…perhaps while they are also looking for real love.
Are there more “players” than people looking for meaningful relationships?
Relationships-Sexs last blog post..Match.com: Get Laid While Looking for Love
Richard, fine question. I know very little about the SF market (you may want to ask David Mott at the Dad’s House Blog), but I’ll tell you what I know about Orlando and a couple of other cities I’ve lived in.
In my region, there are significantly more guys on match than women, and from what I understand, a lot of the women on match don’t have paid accounts…in other words, they can’t check their email. So the marketplace is skewed against the guys. It’s highly unlikely a guy in my market would go 5/5 here, although not impossible I suppose. If I send out 20 emails, I might get back 6-7 responses. From those responses, it takes me a bit of back-and-forth communication to get things set up for a meet. I get plenty of flakes, and rarely do I convert a first date to an f-close. So, low percentages. However, I’ll be the first to say that I have only decent online game, not great. Are there tons of players? I don’t think so…I think there are WAY more AFC guys on match than players, just like in real life. Those stories about players banging 5 chicks in 5 dates distort the perception.
I will tell you though, that if you are a guy and you want to reel in dates, you should be above 6′, make good money ($75k), have good pictures, and be able to write clever emails. A dude with this profile could get all the dates because that’s what all the chicks on there are looking for. It’s kinda like real life, quite frankly.
Hope that answers your question.
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Lance, good insights. About San Francisco…the SF market is probably a little skewed because half of the men don’t prefer women. Thus, it’s an absolutely great city for a straight guy. The odds are truly in one’s favor. Maybe that’s why it’s so damn expensive
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Loved it Lance…all of your tips are useful….these are very important…I was almost fooled in meeting this guy in NY…I had such a narrow escape that I think its so important for people to be educated about how to spot out fake profiles in Match.com…and not just match but also Facebook and Myspace…these are so dangerous…we read stories of 14-15 being fooled by 50 year old!!!
These days besides using Match.com, I have started testing Bluepont to meet guys…I am finding it quite useful so far…the best part is my privacy is maintained and its impossible to fake your profile…have you heard about it?
one big mistake. Everyone does NOT fill in education, job, and income under what they seek for a math.
I had an interesting experience on match.com. I didn’t have a lot of profile looks except for the first few weeks though I am considered successful and good looking. I even got a few thanks, but no thanks responses. I was feeling down and then I switched to another dating site and all of a sudden I had emails and dates out the ying yang. I really think match has gotten so big and there are so many fakes there, it is difficult finding a good match. The smaller sites are the way to go.
Also let me throw in a buddy of mine tried match.com and he had no success but the first sentence he wrote mentioned he was divorced with a young child that lives with me. One lady did email him and said that is actually considered a turn off interestingly enough.
I recently found 2 fakes on Match.com. One of them contacted me and the other one I contacted first. One of them goes by Canadianlover and has named himself Eric Vavrock who reportedly has an 11 yr. old son named Richard.He quickly removes his profile from Match.com, gets you to start chatting on Yahoo chat, gives you his cell number and also begins texting frequently. He is very good at consuming your time and getting you to do the same.He uses ericvavrock@yahoo.com as his e-mail and chat address. I had also spoken to him on the phone on a few occassions…..He is a very good/smooth scammer! This guy claims to be an electrical engineer who lives in North York, Cananda but works abroad mostly. He scamed me out of $2,000 before I finally caught on by researching a poem he supposedly wrote for me (which I found on a commonly used scammer poetry site called lovingyou.com). He actually wanted me to wire $2,000 more to help get him plane tickets to come see me. He didn’t get it and I have enjoyed reporting this scammer to any website/romance scam website I can find. The second guy, who goes by the name Quentin Scott, didn’t move as quickly, but he did remove his profile quickly. He would send an e-mail every few days and after 2-3 weeks he began asking for details on how I spend my days and what me week was like. He also claimed to have a son, 6 years old (although I’m pretty sure he told me his son was 8 years. old originally). His son’s name is also Richy! I was cautious to provide any information to this guy online, and offered to meet in a public place 1/2 way between New York,NY were he reportedly lived and the town I live in in NYS. He wanted to keep writing instead and I refused to persist with this type of communication. he wrote a detailed letter a few days ago and I decided to research one of the paragraph’s online that he had written….the first 2 sentences in it were from love letter website (actually a few different websites)…..word-for-word. At that point I decided online dating was no longer safe anymore (even though I married my late husband after meeting online) and had also dated a few other men that I had met online prior to that…..I had used match.com and eHarmony.com for the past 8-9 years and nothing like this had ever happened before. Please beware and check out a website called Ramancescams.com before you decide to post a profile on any website.
Eric Vavrock has scammed a lady in Oregon out of $83,000. You need to be aware of these types of people because this is all they do. In this case he claimed to be from another Oregon city, but then had to go to the UK for business. Once in London he requested money from the victim for various needs…cell phone, medical bills, plane tickets etc.
This is a Romance Scam
Please understand that most uk dating sites are at best 80% men 20% women, so who else could be creating fake profiles?
You don’t need the brains of an archbishop for that one.
I could provide a long list of the scams, esp international sites, but all I can do is guide around them
I joined match 2 weeks ago without much activity the first week. Since the 2nd week I have gotten 8-10 “winks” and most were from Calif. while some were from TX and OH ( I live on the east coast). But always hundreds or thousands of miles away…….the winks were from VERY good looking men with only one photo posted and a very short description of what they were looking for (nothing about themselves or very little). The grammer, punctuation and run on sentences (beginning sentences are not capitalized, nor are things like “I”)! Plus, when I ‘winked’ back or even clicked ‘no thank you’ and went back a day or so later to check the profile, it was no longer available. I even had CALONELYMAN, (who was drop dead gorgeous 40 and a widower, come on!!) IM me, all his questions were regarding how long I’d been on match, had I been here before with any ‘luck’ etc. When I asked how long he’d been there, he told me that day was his FIRST day, and his very first time using a dating site, however his profile was no longer available 4 hours later (who pays for a subscription and then cancels their profile the same day!) There were a couple that had “send me your email” in their headline – according to Match.com RULES, this is a NO NO and will not be published!
Great job on the article!
The FAKE profiles are NEVER under the WHO VIEWED ME, either!
My ongoing review of bogus profiles that “match” me: Bad Match
Gary, thanks for the link, fantastic work! I glanced at your site and will check it out in-depth.
FAKE PROFILES ON MATCH! BEWARE
I can’t believe what i’m reading — i’ve been complaining to Match for months now and i thought it was just me. I’m a woman i get so many fake profiles sent to me. WOMEN HERE ARE THE SIGNS:
- They are always “God Fearing” in their profiles
- Have one picture and look like models
- they want to get married and are widowed
- They often will want women 45-65 — when they are 30. WTF – what guy is looking to hook up with a 60 year old
Warning — Match.com should have a lawsuit against them for supporting this.
I believe I’ve spotted 3 fakes on Match recently. One has 6-7 pics of a very beautiful woman – they look like modeling pics. The profile is filled out very well but it’s filled with misspellings and broken English like “I would like husband take care of me” and “Beech is great place to have romance”. Usually the pics are a dead give-away.
I got a wink from a woman just last night. This one looks fake too. She says she’s 30 but the 3 pics look like they were pulled off some 16 year old’s Myspace account. She’s “self employed” so she doesn’t make a lot of money but she’s “accustomed to the finer things in life like expensive cars and traveling”. Hmmm.
You got it buddy. I recently logged into my match account, did a few searches, and ran across 3-4 scammer or fake profiles out of maybe a field of 60 chicks. Keep reporting these.
Winks are useless. I ONLY get winks from scammers or “curvy” women. Assuming the curvy woman is real, why doesn’t she just email me?
heres a perfect example of a fake profile on match: http://www.match.com/profile/showProfile.aspx?uid=bGnCYRSypEjuOK1Ax9SJ+Q==&handle=get2meetme111&tp=S&pn=1&rn=4&do=0&lid=18
the faker claims to be from fremont ohio and is looking for someone from ages 35-57. profile states looking for someone within 500 miles. Sorry but the pic posted is pretty hot this girl could get a million guys and never leave her town why would she be willing to travel 500 miles or date a 57 yr old.. can anyone say sugar daddy.
I agree most fakers have only one pic and they usually have missing pertinant information. a lot of times the pictures they have up are very small you cant quite get a glimpse of the person. ive notice a lot of fakers that start out with Am instead of I am.
I had a nigerian scammer get to me, one pic on profile, and nice looking blone guy, talked me into yahoo messenger, and within 2 weeks was professing his love to me, but would not meet me, he did not live where he said, and finally asked me for address, money, gifts, check out nigerian scammers on dating sights, they always spell with i’s instead of caps I, and say wonderful things, even their profiles are wonderful, loving and all love them. I reported him to the FBI, but is still out there, and fake phone #s they get from a machine they buy off the internet.
Great post. I see these fake ads all the time in the bay area. Unfortunately, match is still the best dating site online…
I tried Match only to be very disappointed. As a lot of the other women, I never responded to any guy that couldn’t fill out decent profile or list specific pref’s for his match. Come on who is looking for woman 18-70 of any race or shape.
At six foot, I am selective about height. Onlyy dating men 6′2 or taller. I was shocked at the number of men who reply to my profile who are 5′7. Obviously they did not read my profile or are just plain stupid.
Upon meeting several men, I found most lie about age, height, fitness level, number of marriages, employment and education. Some post decade old photos.
One guy justified lieing about his age (60 not 48 as advertised), height (5′10 not 6′1), fitness (overweight NOT athletic and toned), Marriages (2). He claimed that the types of women he is attracted too don’t want to date 60 yr old, heavyset men.
What????Did he think that I wouldn’t notice as soon as I met him???????
Oh…. and he is unemployed.
If a guy claims to have a PhD while claiming English as his native language, why does their profile lack correct spelling, punctuation and grammer???? RED FLAG????
Oh…what about the guys who don’t post a photo? Or…the ones that post photos of their car, boat, place, bike, etc….
I had one guy email me a few times and then I rec’d an email from his WIFE! She claimed to have caught him cheating on her and wanted to know if I had any of his email or if I met with him. What a creep! He was a born again Christian who described himself as honest.
In fact, come to think of it……every guy that said he wass honest, was NOT.
When you agree to meet someone, meet them for a short date (coffee) someplace public. Don’t be afraid to demand to see their ID before giving them your address. If they lied to you, enjoy the laugh. It will make a fun story in the future.
Another thing to add, it’s always an overly sexy girl in the profile.
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Excuse me, but aren’t they ALL fakes?
I mean, online dating has become what CB radio was in the 70s… it was fun when it was new, but eventually so many jerks abused the system that it became unusable. I bet you there are so many fakes, online dating sites would hardly exist without them.
The trend now is toward singles groups on meetup dot com… fakes know better than to show up at those, or they’d get the crap beat out of them! Singles are starting new meetup groups all the time because they are tired of the rigged game which is online dating.
I pity the people who still think they can win at the online dating game. They need to get real.
Reading this I have to say I’m sort of surprised. I’m in the pacific northwest and have used match.com on and off for 8 years or so. I have met a lot of real people, including some who are now close friends and many more who have become part of my social circle. I’ve only dated two people I met online (I’m picky what can I say) but never had anyone try to scam me or do anything crazy. In fact with a number of people I’ve met recently, we’ve established we know the same people before we even met. I’ve been able to verify they are real via facebook and my friend’s friend lists. I also see people I know on there all the time. So I know they are real!
However, if someone doesn’t write me an intelligent thoughtful email I won’t reply. I never reply to winks or profiles with no photos. You’d be amazed at some of the emails I get from doofus guys and a few a-holes. But I just ignore and block them. I like to move fast to meet someone, if a guy doesn’t suggest we meet in a few emails I stop answering. I won’t give out my phone number or talk to them on the phone first. I also use an email account that doesn’t use my full name so they can’t find me offline unless I want them to.
I don’t notice a lot of profiles in this area that look fake. But I did notice there are a LOT of more attractive men in other markets like SF and Denver when I search there. Portland & Seattle match guys aren’t model hot, they are real.
As a woman who makes a very good living I do not post my income. I did a test and listed it for three days. My contact rate plummeted, when I took my income off it went back up. So as much as women want a man who is tall, men don’t want a woman more successful financially. I have also had a number of professional photographers take photos of me for various professional or athletic projects so my photos look ‘too good’ so possibly fake.
The bottom line I think is – NEVER travel just to meet someone you emailed with a few times. If you’ll be in their city for other reasons, then fine, but meet them in a public place. When meeting someone new always tell a friend where you are going and who you are meeting. If you get their full name do an internet search on the name first, check out their story. Don’t give out too much information about yourself until you check someone out. NEVER give someone money if you haven’t met them or even if the relationship is new. A person who will respect you wouldn’t ask you for money to pay for bills, etc.
I also don’t always send a no response to email contacts. I used to be polite and answer all emails. This led to some of my worst experiences. Guys who I had nothing in common with writing me emails about how their life was shit anyway, no women wanted to meet them so they mind as well kill themselves (that really happened) another guy lecturing me about god and misquoting Churchill (I’m a history major – don’t mess with me on historical quotes) and some just writing back calling me a bitch for being polite. I decided passive rejection was better than active rejection. You can’t win for losing I guess.
Be smart, respect yourself, explain you take awhile to get to know someone and try to be true to yourself.