Jiayuan.com sponsors a matchmaking activity at a temple fair in Ditan Park, Beijing in 2007. Photo: CFP
Liu Qing must have thought she had landed an excellent catch. He was an executive with a huge state-owned enterprise. He was looking for a serious relationship and had graduated from Peking University.
Liu Qing, 30, met Liu Jiaguo on China’s largest dating website. After days of making nice conversations over the Internet, they agreed to meet.
She immediately knew he was not her type. “He wasn’t even as tall as me, but I thought we could maintain a relationship as friends considering his education and background.”
He was impressive enough, however, to convince her to travel to Liaoning Province to investigate a potential investment opportunity for the trust company she worked for just 26 days after they first met on jiayuan.com.
On the way she was severely injured in a car accident and that’s when the reality he had fabricated also came crashing down.
Liu Jiaguo was a scam artist, a charlatan and a predator who had been trolling dating websites for years.
After she recovered from her injuries, Liu Qing couldn’t find any trace of the man. The conglomerate he claimed he worked for had never heard of him.
Cons on the increase
Liu Qing decided the dating website should also be held responsible for her physical and emotional sufferings. She sued jiayuan.com in August for failing to ensure its members are in fact who they say they are.
Liu says she was lulled into a false sense of security by jiayuan.com’s assurances that it verifies its members’ information. She thought the 498 yuan ($78) she spent for a year’s membership was supposed to provide a modicum of security.
Liu asked the Chaoyang district court in Beijing to force jiayuan.com to apologize and give her 30,000 yuan in compensation and refund her one year’s membership fee. She lost the case but plans to appeal.
Jiayuan.com proclaims to be China’s largest and most “serious” dating website. It says it has 47 million members and has helped countless singles find love. Last spring, it was listed on NASDAQ.
Along with countless photos of lonely hearts and blaring endorsements from television celebrities, the website also features a floating icon that leads to a government website that is dedicated to “punishing web cheaters and building a harmonious society.” The banner of the website features the central government’s emblem and soldiers in uniform holding the flag and machine guns.
Liu’s case is far from the only story of swindling on a dating website. An increasing number of furious and desperate users are sharing their miserable experiences of meeting dubious characters with ulterior motives online.
More of them are also seeking redress in the courts. They’re not only suing the perpetrators, they’re also accusing dating websites of being their enablers in crime.
A public affairs officer from the Chaoyang district court confirmed with the Global Times that the number of lawsuits involving dating websites is on the rise.
Last Tuesday the court heard a case involving a woman surnamed Meng who has been charged with defrauding four men she met on jiayuan.com. She is accused of scamming the men for 220,000 yuan. She started by fabricating her profile and faking her photographs on the dating website.
Few registration restrictions found
A Global Times investigation reveals just how easy it is to create a fake identity on jiayuan.com. Creating a fictitious 25-year-old woman’s name and scalping a photograph of a pretty face gleaned from another website, this reporter simply submitted the registration form after clicking the boxes indicating and unmarried marital status and an earned monthly salary of between 5,000 and 10,000 yuan.
Within hours of the successful registration, enquiries started pouring in. Without paying the fee for an annual membership, it costs 2 yuan for a stamp to view each “letter.”
During the 10 days the account remained active more than 100 letters were received.
An online conversation with one man almost immediately resulted in a proposition for sex. He bragged about trolling the dating website with the sole purpose of finding partners for one night stands.
After repeatedly being rebuffed at his suggestion to meet, he grew suspicious. He believed this reporter was using an assumed identity and was someone he had already met on jiayuan.com. He sensed a trap.
“I’ve slept with too many and I know some of them want revenge,” he wrote after bragging about his success rate at finding dates online. He soon blocked further contact.