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Comment by dirkgently | Hacker News Reader

Putting all other things aside, I know the incentive for the websites to outsource somebody to create fake profiles (see the comment here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6823194). But what's the incentive for the 'scammers'? How can they 'scam' people on match.com by creating fake profiles? By making them come all the way to Nigeria and rob them? Give me a break.

I am not a big fan of the lawyers, but you sound too biased with statements like - "Match is working their asses off" "their excellent service", "piece of shit a piece of shit".

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Gathering info for a future scam? Match seems like a good vector to get people to divulge personal details that then make a later "it's your friend john, I'm stuck in the airport and need you to wire me some money" scam work.

You could use Facebook, but I have no reason to tell people on Facebook details about my past. They're my friends, they already know. Dating sites are the best way to get a stranger to tell you something personal.

Hi there, I worked at Match for a while and the basic scam pattern I saw was this: a scammer will create an account and send a ton of messages to recently active users, the users that respond will be immediately prompted to take the conversation to email (away from Match's PM system), and once they're off of Match they ask for more personal information.

I never went further down the path than that but I'm sure the scam could evolve along the lines of "I am your one true love please wire me money to buy a plane ticket to come see you."

> How can they 'scam' people on match.com by creating fake profiles?

Getting invited to some developed country by some lonely soul. Get that person to come to their country and then drain their money. There are really guillable and desperate people out there that just stop thinking as soon as somebody fakes interest in them.

But how would Match profit? They have millions of users. What changes if they have millions and a few thousand?

Well, the only fake accounts I've come across have been advertising for other dating sites.

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