Online dating can be a dangerous endeavor. The world is full of creeps, perverts, murderers, lunatics, rapists and 23-year-old New York women who can’t afford to go grocery shopping on their $45,000 salary so they decide to trick lovelorn men into buying them meals at fancy restaurants.

It happens all the time. Well, it happened once.

Business Insider reports that Minerva McGonagall (which isn’t her real name, but BI decided to change it because the story and the woman were getting so much negative feedback) signed up for Match.com to help supplement her food bill. BI reports that McGonagall, who has a $45k salary, was spending $1000 a month to pay off her credit card bill and $1,475 a month for her apartment. After the bills were paid, McGonagall didn’t have enough to eat, so she decided to sign up to Match.com to get a few free meals.

McGonagall said:

“Before I barely had enough money to pay for food. After using Match.com I found I wasn’t going into debt anymore.”

McGonagall says that she went on five dates a week with a rotating list of men. The Match.com dates spent an average of $60 a date with McGonagall with one man even buying her a $200 bottle of champagne.

But it wasn’t all profit for McGonagall. You know, she had to splurge $50 to sign up for Match.com. McGonagall said:

“I mean, a guy buys me three drinks at $15 a pop and that right there made up for my Match fee.”

But don’t feel bad for McGonagall’s victims, I mean dates, the 23-year-old said that her work was strenuous. She said:

“It was exhausting. I needed my sleep and I was done playing the game.”

What do you think about McGonagall’s online dating scheme? Did she game the system? Is the man expected to pick up the tab on an online date?

Woman Uses Online Dating to Supplement Food Budget is a post from: The Inquisitr

Last week Match.com was sued by a female member who claimed that a man she met on the site “brutally sexually assaulted” her and that the member was previously charged with six counts of sexual assault. In the users eyes it was the responsibility of Match.com to screen national sexual predatory registries and deny those users the right to the site.

Immediately following the filing of a lawsuit by that “Jane Doe” Match.com president Mandy Ginsberg announced that the company would begin screening new users against the national sex offender registry, even though that database does not always contain accurate information, which in turn could lead users to a false sense of security.

In the lawsuit the lady, known as “Jane Doe” has asked that no new members be allowed to signup to Match.com until they have developed a method to screen out all sexual predators.

While the ladies motives are no doubt pure, they are ridiculous and here’s why:

First, the predator database is not a “level playing field” for example, an 18 year old male in one state may have been convicted of statutory rape of his 17 year old girlfriend when her parents pressed charges, even though both parties consented to their sexual relations, while in other states the age of consent may be 16 years old. A computer audited system will simply deny the 18 year old male access to the site based on a “hit” to their name. Under this type of circumstance Match.com discriminates based on geographical location within the United States, the exact type of discrimination that could lead to further lawsuits against the company.

Second, as Match.com President Ginsberg states, the National Sexual Registry is not always accurate. While a female member may feel completely safe with her dating choice, there is no guarantee the member was not overlooked in the database or that they have not committed crimes that they have not been arrested for. The fake sense of “security” that comes with this lawsuit could mean a member lets their guard down when in fact they should be paying attention to their dates motives.

Third, there are no cases of precedent (at least that I could find On Lexus Nexus Law) in which any other organization could be held responsible for a female or male member interacting with a sexual predator through contact of their own choosing. For example, if you are sitting at a bar mingling with various members of the opposite or same sex, it is in no way the responsibility of your bartender or the bar owner to screen those individuals at the bar for past sexual offenses. Even if you meet those people during a “date night” or “singles night” at the bar, that institution is under absolutely no obligation to run background checks and warn you of the dangers involved, even while you may have been drinking large amounts of alcoholic beverages. Unlike bars and other meeting places for adults, Match.com at least has a credit card on file, ensuring that if a horrific case of sexual assault occurs they can pass on the users information to police, while a random bar assault can lead to no leads for police to follow. If anything Match.com by gathering credit card and billing information have already provided more security for their users than any other meeting place.

What happened to that particular Match.com users is horrific, there is no doubt about that fact. However, in a connected age where information is readily available, it should be the responsibility of the user to gather their own facts. The National Sex Registry is a free database that “Jane Doe” could have accessed in her own time, yet she is now blaming Match.com for not doing her homework for her, it’s an unfair request from a jilted user.

I applaud Match.com for quickly resolving the issue, however their new practice could lead to discrimination in cases where both parties were consenting “adults” for lack of a better term (our 18 and 17 year old example), a sense of false security and added pressures on other websites to provide unreliable checks and balances because users pull the trigger on lawsuits that are without merit.

I tend to get attacked by feminist groups when I talk about “women issues” online, therefore I want to make myself clear, I am sickened by what happened to this Match.com member, however a national registry check isn’t going to help save other women in the future, in fact it could lead non-arrested predators to the site when they realize women feel “safe” by the company’s new checks and balances and that scares me more than a quick background check that may not be reliable in the first place.

Match.com Should Not Be Responsible For Vetting Users [Lawsuit Retort] is a post from: The Inquisitr

Five individuals, males and females, are suing dating site Match.com and hope to achieve class action status against the site after they allege they were falsely lured into paid accounts on the promise of contacting users who were inactive or had expired accounts.

Match.com, which has just under two million members and brought in a little over $38 million in revenue last year, released a statement about the suit saying that the “claims have no merit” and that the company plans to “defend the lawsuit vigorously.” Plaintiffs in the case hope to recoup “unspecified damages,” as well as repayment of subscription fees ranging from $17 to $35 a month.

The former customers are suing Match.com for breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, breach of contract, and negligent misrepresentation. Dallas News spoke to the writer of an online dating tips website, who elaborated:

…a member may join for a free weekend or free month but then not sign up for a premium membership – making them unable to see messages from other members or causing a profile to be inactive for months at a time.

“It would be great if the site had some kind of notice that not all members can receive e-mails or if there was a box you could check for only premium, paying members,” she said.

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Former customers seek class action status in lawsuit against Match.com is a post from: The Inquisitr

Internet dating sites have kind of a love/hate thing going on in modern society.

It seems most people either met their current other half there, have gotten burned on one, or think the internet is populated with serial killers and merely checking email will give us all social diseases. Sifting through the zillions of profiles on dating sites also could lead you to believe it’s slim pickings, but one guy got very, very lucky looking for internet love.

Like the supermodels in the TV spots for dating sites, actress Essence Atkins was too busy making mad cheddar and being hot to meet a man in real life. Atkins liked that she didn’t have to post a photo on Match.com, and since she could be all anonymous, she messaged a man named Jaime Mendez one Valentine’s Day.

According to Match.com, Atkins and Mendez had 97% compatability. And that may not have been too far off, because the pair is now engaged and plan to tie the knot on September 26th.

Girlfriend better be getting a sweet endorsement deal out of this.

Cosby Show’s Essence Atkins finds love… on Match.com is a post from: The Inquisitr