How to Avoid the Online Dating Scam

by gosein

If you're like me, you probably don't like to pay for something you can get for nothing.

You probably also have a healthy mistrust of governmental authority and a barely concealed contempt for corporate greed.  Yet, outside of the virtual universe, you may not have the time to pursue the sort of emotional relationships that can make such deeply held convictions instantly forgettable.  Corporations know this, even if you forbid your machine from eating cookies.

There are many options for those, like me, starved for real emotional contact: Doc Warren and the Stasi-like censorship over at eHamonme; the suppression of all things liberal over at the alleged leader of the pack, Match.com; or perhaps Match's brainier sister, Chemistry.com.

The sites have different approaches to the art of love, to be sure, but they all share one attribute above all else: separating you from your hard earned cash.  Cleaning rancid cat vomit out of the keyboards of malfunctioning laptops day after day is a thankless task - you've earned every penny you have.  I'm here to let you in on a not-so-closely guarded secret that might keep you from wasting those hard-earned ducats on the scam run by at least one of these major online dating sites (your hacker assignment is to figure out which one - and don't say your cat ate it).

Like any good drug dealer, these sites all suck you in by offering a tantalizing proposition: post an ad for free, get "matches" for free.  Hell, you might even get some ego-reinforcing "personality test" results as an extra free bonus.  Show me the person who ever took one of these tests and was told that they were a sociopath and should be out of the dating pool - and yet, there they are, on the site and eagerly awaiting your response with generalized titles like "builder" or "negotiator."  You can imagine what they're building (basement torture chambers) and negotiating ("if you make me wait until the second date, you unfortunately won't still be alive").

But, I digress.

These sites will send you free matches - but you can get those anywhere.  What really gets the hand reaching for the [wallet, card, keyboard] is when that email shows up that says: "You know what, [anonymous hot person] has read your profile and done an exhaustive search of your background and, despite that now dismissed felony charge in Tampa back in 2005, she/he digs you.  Log in and see what he/she has to offer and to tell her/him you're interested too!"

Oh, you can barely contain your excitement.  You almost knock over your glass of wheat grass.  Steady now.  You log into your 'free" account to see who this person is that was able to get past all the emotional firewalls you built into your profile.  And then, the heartache sets in.  Yes, you can view for free, the profile of the random dudes and dudesses that these dating site algorithms "match" you with (they surely all start with the equation: "subscriber's face = rat's ass").  But, to see the profile, neigh the photograph, of that diamond-in-the-rough that has found their way to you despite the walls and barbed wire you have erected around you heart, there is a price: you must become a "disciple" - you must, gasp, subscribe.  And the cost of disciple-hood, my friends, is not cheap: $50 a month; perhaps a discount if you agree to extend your weekend chipping into a full blown addiction.

You're like: "I already know I want to marry this person that likes me and I want to get started down that yellow brick road now; but, $50, WTF?  That's ten, no more like eight, Starbucks grand Vente whatevers!"  And you're still just beginning to master the Zen skills needed to brew your own proper cup of coffee.  Talk about your approach-avoidance conflicts!

Cognitive dissonance, get thee behind me!

But, what if there was a way that you could view the profile of your secret admirer and see his or her photograph before you part with your cat-vomit cash?  I say, would that be a thing of value to you, something you might pay even a dollar or two to have?  Yes, it would be.  But I am not asking you for a thing.  And I am not filling this article with the usual "educational purposes only" qualifiers, because, as far as I am concerned, any corporate pimp willing to try and rip you off by preying on your vulnerabilities (admit it, you still have some) is someone that is going to spend their afterlife standing on their head in a pool of shit (can't remember what Dante level that is - it's a book, not a videogame).  And besides, what I am about to tell you is totally legal.  F*ck 'em.

So what do you need to do?  Well, there are some things - and they're not necessarily easy, but I think they're within your grasp.  First of all, if you've already parted with your cat-vomit cash and been suckered in by the edating scam(s), you need to think about the void in your life that caused you to drop your normally impenetrable deflector shields and leap into the arms of [insert comic villain of choice], begging him/her to drain you... er..., your bank account, of all its contents.  You should get out more - go to a 2600 meeting, or volunteer somewhere and meet some real people.  O.K., that ain't happening.  But I understand: it's Stockholm Syndrome.

Second, you have to take down your Kevin Mitnick posters and, yes, give away or eBay your limited-edition copy of Freedom Downtime - I know, it will be hard, but so is this life, pardner.  And don't you f*cking dare put up a Steve Jobs poster instead (he was dead before I wrote this), comprende?  Or buy that distasteful "biography" that is hitting the bookstores before poor Steve is either cold in the grave or scattered to the ends of the earth or has had his consciousness fully loaded onto the optional tape-drive of one of those old Radio Shack TRS-80s (he was a big nostalgia fan).  That's an order, Private!  You gotta get outta your head.

Third, log into your [target dating gigolo/whore] account.  Attempt to access the profile of the tempter/temptress that has nearly made you part with a week's wages.  Up pops the screen offering you various ways to part with your indentured servitude payments.  It is so very frustrating, because for a millisecond you can see the prince or princess that has waded into this virtual quicksand to rescue you - and yet, yes, you need an e-ticket for this ride, else no picture or profile visible.

You stare at the precipice of one of life's core existential dilemmas: date or loss of cash?  But not so fast, superhero - move your little mouse cursor over into the corner, where a part of the blurred-out profile can be seen.  Then, though I'm sure you're ambidextrous, pull your right iron, son.  At least in Windoz7, click on the "view encoding" option on the drop-down menu.  What's this?

Oh yes!  Lots of code, and I'm not terribly agile with this stuff, but I patiently scrolled through it all and, voila!

Not only did it contain the entire profile of the concealed admirer that the corporate scum had blocked from my view, but whoa: links to JPEG files of his/her photos that were easily copied and placed on the browser command line and then, just like the old Polaroids, photo revealed (and copyable for later Facebook, Photoshopping... well, your creative mind can, I'm sure, imagine the mischief possible).

Total attempted emotional thievery: $50 minimum.  My cost (and yours) $0.

Of course, if the secret admirer rocks your virtual world, you'll still have to pony up for the email address or other manner of contact (I couldn't find it in the code, but other knowledgeable people may have a way to deduce it out of some of the gibberish that shows up), but at least you won't have to pay $50 only to find out you're lookin' at a toad with a darker past than your own.

And it just goes to show that you don't need to know a ton of stuff to be a "hacker" - a hacker is just someone with a curious mind.  And we should all have curious minds - always.