There were drastic scenes that took place in Dresden at the beginning of June - hundreds of police stormed the company premises of the dating portal Lovoo and other properties in the Elbe city in the first month of summer this year.
At the same time, house searches also took place in Berlin and Munich. 12 of the provider's employees have now been arrested and three arrest warrants have been executed. The accusation was fraud amounting to millions of dollars .
A huge scandal surrounding fake profiles and unfair dealings was born. Now the proceedings have been stopped against payment of a large sum of money.
Unfair business methods: High profits thanks to fake profiles
It is the same suspicion that has accompanied dating platforms like Lovoo for years and has been constantly raised in numerous forums and by consumer advocates: fake profiles are used to lure unsuspecting customers, mostly men, into paid online dating services and thus cheat them out of their money.
Photo by oatawa, via Fotolia
For example, the scandal surrounding the US portal Ashley Madison the year before (after an anonymous hacker attack, the provider admitted the use of automated chatbots) exposed the industry's enormous criminal energy.
Nevertheless, the operators of Lovoo were probably surprised when police officers suddenly showed up for a raid on a sunny summer day.
A whistleblower is said to have once again given the decisive tip. Not one in the Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning category, but one with interesting information about the machinations of the dating app Lovoo.
The relevant information from the public prosecutor's office states specifically:
“The total of 12 defendants were accused of deceiving an unknown number of users through computer-generated so-called fake profiles since 2013 through Lovoo GmbH, whose business is the operation of the online dating platform Lovoo, and thereby ending them on the platform to have provided paid services. The accused are said to have used a correspondingly manipulated source code in a few weeks between June 14th, 2013 and July 23rd, 2014, which is said to have caused a total loss of EUR 1,182,720.40 to the affected users to the benefit of Lovoo GmbH.”
Source: Press release from the Dresden public prosecutor's office from September 29, 2016
The damage and the consequences
Between June 2013 and June 2014, members are said to have been defrauded almost 1.2 million euros The company's employees created hundreds of false profiles under the guidance of the managing directors. Men willing to mate could contact them by paying a membership fee - of course there was never an offline meeting.
Two executives were arrested in the June raids but were released on bail a few days later. One of them has now withdrawn from operational business.
Investigations against Lovoo stopped
In the press release from the Dresden public prosecutor's office in September, the discontinuation of the investigation against Lovoo confirmed in exchange for a payment of large amounts of money.
The discontinuation of the proceedings is based primarily on two circumstances: None of the twelve accused employees at Lovoo had a criminal record. The financial damage to the individual members was also manageable. Some Lovoo users were cheated out of 20 cents, others out of 20 euros.
Photo by Yingko, via Fotolia
Since all of the accused agreed to the prosecutor's conditions, the proceedings against them can now be discontinued. This means you are spared an expensive and potentially lengthy process.
However, they don't get off as cheaply as their victims. They have to pay a total of 1.2 million euros to stop the proceedings , the amounts are between 5,000 and 390,000 euros. According to the public prosecutor's office, a large part of this sum goes directly to charitable institutions. 300,000 euros will be used to cover state costs.
Lovoo stays online and strives for user trust
The portal was not offline during the pending proceedings. By agreeing to the conditions, the managing directors also aimed to prevent further damage to Lovoo.
It is not known how many members the dating site has lost in the last few months as a result of the scandal. Various comparison sites of dating portals have checked the platform for its seriousness, especially after the allegations.
A lot has been done at Lovoo to ensure that fakes no longer have such an easy time of it. The fact that the dating site now uses stricter protective measures can also be seen here . The graphic on the security measures shows that, in addition to an automatic profile check, users of the portal can now also report other users if they suspect that they are fakes.
According to the company, 60 million profiles are still active on the dating app . The question arises as to how many of them are real.
The managing directors' emphasized goal now is to rebuild trust in the coming weeks and months. A number of further measures were decided to prove the seriousness. This includes verified user profiles and a regular fake report.
How can I still trust Lovoo?
The suspicion of fake profiles is always present in such offers. With Lovoo, this suspicion suddenly became very real. The discontinuation of the proceedings against payment of the sum of millions prevents a conviction for commercial fraud. But it is also an admission of guilt by those responsible.
For a long time, paying customers were cheated in search of true love or a sexual adventure. I would think twice about trusting Lovoo with my money to find love.
There are more trustworthy offers out there. At least I think so – until the next crackdown on the industry. In any case, before using online dating portals, you should familiarize yourself with what dangers and risks can lurk there .
Scandals like this help make things better for consumers across the industry. Providers should now consider more carefully whether and to what extent they tolerate the use of fake profiles or chatbots.
