She has other online dating safety tips; If you decide to meet someone in person that you’ve spoken with only online, always meet in a public place the first few times. Drive yourself. Let your friends and family know where you’re going, with whom and when you plan to return. Have a panic word in case you have a quick second to call them if you need help. And keep your phone online so you can be tracked through GPS if necessary.
That might sound a little extreme, but Balland-Reisch says it’s simply a prudent precaution. Just last month a Las Vegas woman sued Match after she said she was stabbed by a man she met on the dating site. We used to be able to rely on our support networks – our family and friends – to vet people for us. When we meet people online, we can’t do that anymore.
And more and more, we are meeting people online. Despite all the nightmare stories and bad experiences, Ballard-Reisch says an estimated one in five romantic relationships start online today.
Others complain Match doesn’t respond to their complaints about unsavory characters
The 50-year-old Las Vegas woman is suing Match for $10 million, saying she was brutally stabbed and beaten by a man the dating site set her up with.
Other consumers have told ConsumerAffairs that sexually-menacing and deceptive men remain on Match even after they are repeatedly reported to the site’s managers.
Beckman said she and Wade Ridley, 53, dated for eight days in before she called it off. But a few months later, an enraged Ridley broke into Beckman’s house and stabbed her several times with a butcher knife while stomping on her head and neck, according to Fox 5 Las Vegas.
Beckman said Ridley told police he had intended to kill her, not just hurt her. While being questioned by police, he allegedly admitted to killing 62-year-old Anne Simenson, an Arizona woman he’d also met on Match, in early 2011. She was stabbed with a butcher knife and a machete.
Inadequate warnings
Beckman’s suit argues that Match does not adequately warn clients that it may pair them up with people who are dangerous.
The company called the suit “absurd” and said it will argue that it can’t be held responsible for what its members do on their own time.
Consumers rate Match “The many millions of people who have found love on Match and other online dating sites know how fulfilling it is,” the company said in a statement. This is about a Oasis forma activa a alguien en el mensaje sick, twisted individual with no prior criminal record, not an entire community of men and women looking to meet each other.”
She said she was hounded by sexually expicit emails from a man in London insisting that he wanted to marry her. A meeting was arranged at a bar but Sandy said the man looked “disgusting” and she left quickly.
“I then sent him a message and told him that I thought he was too old for me. However, when I got back, he would not take rejection and tried again to meet me,” she said. “I decided to report it to Match and he is still on the website now. The Match team did not do anything to remove this man from the site but I think he is sexually harassing and abusing women.
“He brags that he can get sex on the website 7 days per week if he wanted to. I decided to immediately remove myself from the site,” she said. “Despite complaining on numerous occasions to Match, no one did anything about it. I felt very angry and disappointed with the Match team and moreover that there is no policing of these emails, etc. How can Match not do anything to protect vulnerable women?”