By Fran Abrams5 live Investigates

Certainly one of Britain’s biggest internet dating providers has rejected producing individual pages on its sites to entice new clients to register.

Surfers utilising the internet internet web sites run by Edinburgh-based Cupid Plc – such as cupid.com, benaughty.com and flirt.com – told the BBC they received messages that are flirtatious neglected to get dates.

They stated that they had plenty of communications once they finalized as much as web sites as free users, nevertheless when they paid up, interest quickly tailed down.

Cupid Plc’s Chairman, Bill Dobbie, stated it had about 500 “staff pages” on its web sites – but he insisted these were utilized for moderating boards and discussion boards – and also to root away scammers.

Subscription

The BBC talked to 11 users of Cupid Plc’s web web web sites, whom stated they suspected that numerous for the ‘daters’ they heard from is probably not genuine.

When 5live Investigates finalized as much as indonesian cupid sign in the website to evaluate the machine, it had the exact same experience.

The websites allow users to join up free of charge, however in purchase to reply to an email from another known user they need to spend a cost.

Will from Berkshire, whom asked to be identified just by their first title, registered by having a Cupid website called datetheuk.com being a free member – and straight away discovered he had been popular.

“It began with ‘winks’ and proceeded to talk communications – innocent communications. An extremely appealing girl purporting to live nearby messaged me personally, but i really couldn’t react he said unless I paid. “and so i joined up with up, then again the communications ceased. Used to do wonder if it absolutely was an automatic response through the business to entice individuals just like me to join up.”

Texts

Jean Bayou, from Staines, western London, stated a subscription was bought by him to cupid.com after getting divorced. He received messages that are several but when he’d paid to respond he failed to hear through the senders once more.

“It appeared like the folks worried just weren’t truly looking for times,” he stated. “They did not appear to be genuine visitors to me personally.”

Jean additionally received a few texts from a female calling by herself ‘Anne.’ He realised belatedly that for every text he sent or received he ended up being charged Р’Р€1.50 by Cupid plc.

Andrew, from Wales – whom failed to wish their surname utilized – said that being a 57 year-old he was amazed whenever a wide range of young, appealing ladies contacted him via cupid.com.

He discovered three of them claimed to be from the Swansea Enterprise Park – an industrial zone when he checked their details, though.

“we did begin to wonder should they could be published by the business to help keep me personally interested,” he stated. “I felt there was clearly one thing funny going in.”

Denial

Cupid Plc is viewed as a populous city success tale. It had been floated in the AIM stock exchange this season, plus in 2011 it had been called as Scotland’s fastest-growing technology company because of the accountancy company Deloitte.

The organization claims its internet platform supports a lot more than 84 million individual records and it has significantly more than 800,000 users online every day. Its users reside in 58 various nations, as well as its message system handles very nearly 200 million communications every day.

Mr Dobbie categorically denied the business delivered communications to be able to lure members that are free spend subscriptions. “If any clients have concerns that are specific they need to contact me personally or my customer support team straight,” he stated.

He added the organization had been spending so much time to eliminate users that are non-genuine lots of whom aimed to extract cash from web-surfers.

“we have always been especially grateful when it comes to BBC increasing the problem of scammers in this industry and hopefully, along with your support, we could make an effort to expel this scamming practice,” he stated.

The organization stated it did inform users of the prices for texts.

You can easily pay attention to the complete report on 5 real time Investigates on Sunday, 24 February, at 11:00 GMT on BBC 5 reside .

Pay attention once more via the 5 website that is live by getting the 5 live Investigates podcast.