Wednesday, September 25, 2019

FTC Sues Match Group Over Fake Love Interests

The FTC has sued Dallas-based Match Group, alleging that the online dating service took advantage of fake love interests to trick "hundreds of thousands of consumers" into purchasing paid subscriptions on the site, the FTC said on Wednesday. According to the FTC, Match sent emails to nonsubscribers stating that someone had expressed an interest in the consumer--but many of those actualy came from suspected fraudulent accounts. The FTC said those emails to non-subscribers were triggered by accounts that the company had already flagged as likely to be fraudulent; but prevented its existing subscribers from receiving those same emails. The Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, Andrew Smith, said in a statement that "We believe that Match.com conned people into paying for subscriptions via messages the company knew were from scammers."