Florida mom Yuliana Avalos says she never created a profile on Match.com, but her pictures are used in over 200 of them.
A $ 1.5 billion class action lawsuit has been filed against Match.com, charging the popular website with engaging in “one of the biggest conspiracies ever executed on the internet.”
The named plaintiff, Yuliana Avalos, is a mom and part-time model who never joined the site, but says her pictures have been used “in hundreds if not thousands of fraudulent profiles” posted on the company’s dating sites over the past six years.
“Not a day goes by when someone doesn’t tell me that they saw my pictures posted on Match.com or another web site,” the Florida woman said in a statement.
The suit says she’s not alone.
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“Thousands” of others, including celebrities, soldiers and adult actresses, have had their pix plucked from Facebook and other sites and wrongly used for bogus profiles as well – even though they “are not and never were” members of Match’s dating sites, the suit says.
Yuliana Avalos
The court filing says it’s making the allegations based on hundreds of complaints obtained by the lawyers and the lawyers’ own probe, which included the use of photo recognition software.
The phony profiles are often created by scammers in other countries for “criminal purposes,” the suit says.
Avalos’ lawyer, Evan Spencer, said those purposes include “romance scams,” which “entice victims to send money to people outside of the country after meeting on defendants’ web sites.”
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While not many people fall for the scams, a high percentage of profiles are fakes aimed at bilking customers out of money, the suit says.
The suit says that at best, the company looks the other way with the bogus profiles, because it can tell they’re being posted from foreign countries and not the area listed on the profile.
“Not a day goes by when someone doesn’t tell me that they saw my pictures posted on Match.com or another web site,” says Yuliana Avalos.
Most of the victims are “widows, widowers and divorces age 50 and over,” the site says.
The company also creates its own bogus profiles, the federal suit says.
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It doesn’t elaborate on the charge – but notes that inflating the number of profiles on Match and its other 25 dating sites is good for their business.
The suit also says the company could easily crack down on the numerous bogus profiles – Avalos is pictured in over 200 of them – by using facial recognition software, but has chosen not to.
It charges the company with negligence and unjust enrichment, and seeks $ 500 million in money damages for the “thousands” of victims, and $ 1 billion in punitive damages.
Reps for Match.com and its corporate owner, IAC, which is based in Chelsea, had no immediate comment.
The company has been sued over bogus profiles by its members before, but the suits were tossed because the terms of Match.com’s users agreement doesn’t require it to “police” profiles.
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via Great Local News: New York http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info
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