I have two problems with this statement: "Not a day goes by when someone doesn't tell me that they saw my pictures posted on Match.com or another website" 1)

I have two problems with this statement: "Not a day goes by when someone doesn't tell me that they saw my pictures posted on Match.com or another website" 1) The numbers: Given how many friends real people have, given that 50% or so of the population are male, given that not all of one's friends are single, given that not everyone who is single is searching the internet looking for love, given that not all the fake profiles that use her photo are geographically likely to be where her single friends that use dating websites live, given that not everyone that uses a dating website is willing to admit to it, what is the realistic likelihood that this 'mom and model' really does have people telling her almost every day that they have just seen her likeness online? 2) 'or another website': It is well known that many dating websites use fake profiles bought of the internet. The complaint is about match.com, not mystery random other websites. As for why the fake profiles... The business model of a dating website (OKCupid excepted, which is also owned by match.com) relies on people paying a monthly fee to be on the site. Therefore it is not in the best interest of the dating website for customers to ever find a partner and leave. To get people to join there has to be at least an illusion of sensible dates in the subscriber's area. Once paid up then you can message them, without paying then there is no way to do that. I believe match.com have sufficient subscribers so that most people in most large cities do have a reasonable amount of genuine potential dates, however, there is no way of knowing if those other dates are non-paying profiles that will not answer back to any messages sent. Therefore, there is no way of knowing if those profiles are genuine. Clearly reputation rests on these profiles being genuine, they cannot be outright fakes or else subscribers will cancel their membership and try their luck elsewhere. As the situation stands the subscriber, not getting any replies back can assume that a) they are far too ugly for the 'hot chick' to want to write back, b) they have not done well writing a message they would want to reply to, c) the 'hot chick' gets so much interest that some 'hotter dude' has beaten them to it or d) the 'hot chick' has joined the site but not paid up. Only the paranoid would assume option e) that the 'hot chick' is some fake profile. The BBC's Panorama recently did an investigation into dating websites and it found that quite a few were pieced together with fake profiles. These profiles can also be bought online, so, if you want a few hundred thousand profiles for a dating website then you can just buy them. There are also places in obscure parts of the world where people spend all day 'being' these fake/ghost profiles. I would not be the least bit surprised if there were also 'Eliza' programs automating this. I don't think match.com are that unscrupulous, but then again, they are, the business demands it.