First online “matchmaking” service Great Expectations fools two members into paying four-figure membership fees — and now Barry Diller’s Match.com is accused of something even more (humorously) grotesque: hanging on to paying members by sending staff out on faux dates.
Match.com, a unit of IAC/Interactive Corp., is accused in a federal lawsuit of goading members into renewing their subscriptions through bogus romantic e-mails sent out by company employees. In some instances, the suit contends, people on the Match payroll even went on sham dates with subscribers as a marketing ploy.
To be fair, Match.com denies the practice — though if the two did hit it off and ended up sleeping together, does that make Diller a pimp?
Yahoo, meanwhile, is keeping mum on its own set of accustations that include posting sham profiles to entice paying members. Because you’ve never posted a fake photo on Hot Or Not to get people to like you, either.