I'm amazed at how few women there are on AM. I knew there wouldn't be many, but the numbers seem to be ridiculously low.
That's shady business no matter what you think. I personally have zero empathy for Ashley Madison and for what's happening to them.
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Adult Friend Finder actually pays an absurdly higher payout for referrals whom happen to be women, because they don't get many women signing up.
So it's usually safer to cheat someone if you can do so in a manner that would also humiliate them if their role in the con was exposed. They discount what they lost by the price of their own dignity and reputation.
It's in the fine print usually that some accounts are there for "entertainment purposes".
I think it would be naive to not suspect these sites of having a very skewed male subscribership in addition to using chat bots or paid people to engage customers.
You agree to the terms and conditions upon account creation, even if you don't read them.
A person's ignorance and naivety is not evidence of fraud.
Nor did the T&C say or imply that any percent of the account will be genuine, or that there would be plenty of male and female accounts.
The customers paid for the ability to read messages sent to them by anyone (employee, bot or real person), nothing more.
Assuming something when you've been explicitly told otherwise but chose to ignore it does not equate to fraud.
A person's naivety and ignorance don't equate to being defrauded.
Their landing page says:
>Ashley Madison is the most famous name in infidelity and married dating.
Their Google ads say:
>Have an affair -- Guaranteed
Only conclusion to draw here is that you are a bot.
5. Other Aspects of the Ashley Madison Service – For Your Entertainment
Our Site and our Service gives users the opportunity to explore their fantasies
and to interact with others in the Site. However, there is no guarantee you will
find a date or partner on our Site or using our Service. Our Site and our Service
also is geared to provide you with amusement and entertainment. You agree that some
of the features of our Site and our Service are intended to provide entertainment.
Others Using the Site for Entertainment
You also understand and agree that there are users and members on the Site that
use and subscribe to our Service for purely entertainment purposes. Those users and
subscribers are not seeking physical meetings with anyone they meet on the Service,
but consider their communications with users and members to be for their amusement.
You acknowledge and agree that any profiles of users and members, as well as,
communications from such persons may not be true, accurate or authentic and may be
exaggerated or fantasy. You acknowledge and understand that you may be communicating
with such persons and that we are not responsible for such communications.
Seems pretty clear to me - absolutely no claim you will actually find someone to "hook-up" with. Absolutely states there are accounts being used that have no interest in you other than for entertainment purposes (ie. keeping you engaged).
No fraud here, only bruised egos.
Marketing says guaranteed. Tiny print says "oh, heh, no guarantees". It has all of the elements of fraud.
Additionally, no where in what you posted does it say that their employees or bots will be interacting with you as if they were a user, member, or subscriber.
You acknowledge and understand that you
may be communicating with such persons
and that we are not responsible for such
communications.
As the writer of the Gizmodo exposes said, it was like cheating Farmville.
Ashley Madison didn't invent dating sites, and certainly didn't invent this MO. I'd wager it's pretty standard for all dating sites. AM just happened to be the first (or most prominent?) dating site that advertised having an affair/cheating.
I see no fraud here -- only bruised egos, a few ruined marriages, and the embarrassing truth that some men will go to extreme lengths to speak with women, even when it flies in the face of absurdity.
The way it works is that if you don't hook up within the specified time (I believe it's 120 days) then they refund your money. And technically speaking, this is not a lie.
What they don't tell you is that they process the refund in the form of a check, with their name on it, mailed to your home address.
Given that the entire concept of the site is to attract users who want to keep their activity secret from the people they live with, how many people will actually go through with asking for their guarantee to be honored?
(I know that there are legitimate uses of the site that don't require going behind your spouse's back. But it's pretty clear that most of their user base was using it that way.)
Several aspects of Ashley Madison are described in the Terms and Conditions as "For Your Entertainment."[19] This included Ashley's Angels, a feature that generated fictitious profiles to simulate communication with real members and perform market research. According to the site, Ashley's Angels accounts "are NOT conspicuously identified as such."[20] Ashley's Angels profiles were limited to messaging only guest accounts and users could opt out of the feature via their profile management page. Users were charged the standard rate to read messages from and chat with these fictitious profiles.
But then AM adds a whole extra layer ontop, which is marketed for affairs. And there I feel the disposition towards cheating also differs between sexes. At least, intentional, planned cheating. i.e. woman probably cheat just as often, but it's probably very much a male thing to register on a website specific for dating guys who cheat (and being comfortable then, with the notion that whoever you're meeting is also a cheater), pay a whole load of money for this, and then hook up with guys you know are cheating on their wives. Whereas a man who's looking to cheat probably doesn't care much that the woman he's hooking up with is cheating on her husband. There's this whole layer of 'family wrecking' and notions about sex that men and women probably, on average, think differently about. Most women who are comfortable with such relationships are probably part of a swinger couple anyway which isn't cheating and not part of AM's market.
The combination of the two is such that you get ridiculous ratios. But yeah even I was surprised to hear it was apparently something like 1:2000 right? That's just hilariously pathetic if you think about it.