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Comment by Killswitch | Hacker News Reader

Let me tell you this, I worked in the adult industry and I absolutely despised working with dating sites. Ashley Madison, Adult Friend Finder, etc because of this issue. They employed hundreds of staff who's main job was to pretend to be interested women messaging non-paying members enticing them to upgrade their free memberships to be able to respond back or what-have-you-not and then once the customer was paying, they stopped and moved onto the next.

That's shady business no matter what you think. I personally have zero empathy for Ashley Madison and for what's happening to them.

Edit://

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.

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How is this not considered fraud?

Proving it would require the cooperation of witnesses and aggrieved parties who would be publicly embarrassed if they were to provide testimony.

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.

That is true, but the world is big and there are people who (1) wouldn't be ashamed, (2) could do it as an intentional investigation. And the crooks can't detect those people in advance.

> How is this not considered fraud?

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.

Placing some text in tiny print does not absolve you of fraud. It may actually be evidence of fraud.

> Placing some text in tiny print does not absolve you of fraud. It may actually be evidence of fraud.

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.

The T&C did not say or imply that ~100% of the womens' accounts were fake. Plus you can't rely on fine print in the T&C to absolve you of engaging in a fraudulent business relationship, that's not how contracts are enforced.

> The T&C did not say or imply that ~100% of the womens' accounts were fake.

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.

What?

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.

https://www.ashleymadison.com/app/public/tandc.p

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.

What? The "Guaranteed" ad was purchased by someone else?

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.

The TOS you quoted says:

   You acknowledge and understand that you
   may be communicating with such persons
   and that we are not responsible for such
   communications.

But AM is directly responsible for many (a majority of?) such communications. It's their employees doing the communicating. AM saying that they're "not responsible" is a blatant lie.

Still fraud, methinks. Having some accounts for "entertainment purposes" accounts is one thing, taking money from men -- with an "affair guarantee" at the top tier -- to let them message "women" nearly 100% of whose accounts are fake is another.

As the writer of the Gizmodo exposes said, it was like cheating Farmville.

Again, it said all this was happening in clear text, in the terms and conditions likely few read. Other comments have even mentioned there was a setting in the account which would toggle off (opt-out) of receiving the bogus account messages... but few people probably made that setting either.

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.

One interesting tidbit that I came across in all of this is that the "affair guarantee" itself is its own little scam.

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.)

Note the Ashley Madison wiki page says that these BS accounts are actually presented in the terms and conditions. I'm kind of impressed with the hutzpah of even giving these fake accounts the name "Ashley's Angels":

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.

Actually, I can sort of accept that. I'm sure people would be upset to find they were chatting with a fictitious account, but I'm also sure AM made the chats entertaining and flattering. The question is whether they actively lead the men to believe there was a real chance of a hookup, and how much leading is bad and how much is normal and how a flirtatious women would act? I guess AM would actually have stats on that based on real female profiles.

The highest paid tier, for $249, includes an "Affair Guarantee." You could still claim that even so, men are just paying for a fantasy, but at those prices, and with the supposed "guarantee," they seem to venturing into fraud territory.

This is the study of human nature in all this that I find most amusing. For $249, there are much more straight forward and guaranteed ways to have an affair. Even if affair is not insinuating sex, which I'm pretty sure most guys would assume, how is this not paying for sex in their mind? One would also assume the few real women are most likely prostitutes/escorts anyways.

I imagine paying for sex and paying for a service to help you find someone interested in you (either physically, mentally or both) actually fulfill two related, but still very separate, desires.

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