There has been a lot of talk on the wires about Fighting Scammers and Matching systems.
At Dating Factory we tend not to put press releases out just to generate hype without substance, unlike most of our competitors. I did however feel compelled to let you all know our position on these sensitive themes.
Fighting Scammers:
Firstly it’s necessary to define what a scammer is. This in our view is someone who puts up a profile that doesn’t reflect who they are or where they are. These people then use this profile to win the trust of genuine members to either lead them on or worse probably try and extract money from them. One of the other White Label platform providers just came out and said that after 5 years of operations they’ve now started taking on the scammers, by moderating profiles more carefully. It begs the question what the hell have you been doing up to now!
Our first filter is the verification of the email address which accounts for 20% of attempted sign ups. At Dating Factory, every profile is manually checked before being approved and has been since the day we launched. We also don’t accept any profiles where the IP address doesn’t concur with the physical address given in the profile. Furthermore we have a broad brush approach regarding Africa. With the exception of South Africa we just don’t accept profiles. I apologise at this point to the genuine daters in Nigeria and The Ivory Coast, but these countries and most of the rest of Africa presents too higher risk to take.
This geographic filtering takes us back to an early post on the quality and targeting of the traffic you are sending.
Every single day our administrators delete an average of 8% of new members on the system having judged them to be high risk.
It is impossible to police every profile accurately but within the system there is the chance for the members to report scammers at the click of a button. We have remarkably few complaints and with the work we do up front we don’t really need to spend time monitoring the traffic on the system.
So what does this mean? We feel that Dating Factory is a safe place for our members to search for a relationship of whatever kind they are looking for. We keep trying to improve, but the low level of complaints we receive would lead us to believe that we are doing a pretty good job.
Finding the PERFECT Match?
On the subject of scammers, here’s a provocative statement. The ever increasing number of companies trying to use some incredibly complicated algorithms to help people find the perfect match. This usually costs a lot of money and is of dubious value. Firstly most people aren’t totally truthful on their profile, which is a mistake, so the base data they are using is incorrect. Secondly this is the equivalent of the old kids Mr Potato Head toy. You can change the nose, eyes, hair, hat to put together the monster you are looking for. God, what a horrible thought. Has anyone taken the time to think what a combination of JLo’s ass, Megan Foxes boobs with Kiera Knightly’s head might look like, not to mention the combined egos making up the worst behaved person on the planet?
I personally really enjoyed finding the right person and had a blast kissing a lot of frogs or being one of the frogs being kissed by a lot of girls looking for their Prince. My advice to the members who are looking for a relationship is to;
- Post a good but current picture that reflects how you really look.
- Don’t be too pushy or demanding when you write your profile, try and sound fun and friendly or not if you are not.
- Don’t write a really short profile, you have to say something about yourself. Again try to keep it engaging and invite people into the experience that is you.
- Broaden your horizons. Don’t limit the distance from home by too much, you should be ready to travel some distance. If the right person was in the immediate area you’re likely to know already.
- Most importantly put down what you are really looking for on the site. It may narrow the field but you are more likely to find what you want.
So get on the sites regularly, use the chat and email to talk to as many people as possible and most importantly get out from behind your computer and take a few risks, who knows you might have some fun.