Something Wasn't Right 10 March 2013 Reviewer: Close Call with a Scammer from Grand Rapids, MI, USA
301 of 508 people found this review helpful
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I looked at the reviews for over 50 dating sites and determined SeniorMatch was the best. I also really liked that the site verified members' identities, ages, educations, jobs and incomes. It made me feel"safer" that I wasn't communicating with a scammer. I was on the site for about a month and when I realized of the dozen or so "winks" I'd received, ten of them had profiles that "couldn't be found" when I tried respond to the them. I contacted SeniorMatch's support staff ia email to ask why this would be happening. The response they gave me was that it can happen for many reasons. I thought they would be concerned about the really high %age, which seem suspicious to me. At about that time I was contacted by a guy from the UK who had had his identify and age verified by SeniorMatch. His profile "disappeared" after I'd been emailing with him a couple of days, supposedly because of a server problem he'd had. He suggested that we switch to personal emails, which we did and then we ended up talking on the phone. Lots of red flags went up as a result of that call. Everything from the background noises not being right to his excessive "concern" over a financial issue seemed all wrong. I expressed my doubts to him and to allay my concerns he emailed me a copy of his passport and offered to send a copy of his company ID. I decided to search for his name on Google.co.uk and wasn't able to find anyone by his name. I became suspicious enough to contact a company that conducts background checks and they verified I was communicating with was a professional scammer. Apparently, the scammer had provided his fake passport to SeniorMatch as proof of his identity and age. In addition, I had also called SeniorMatch's support contact number to report my profile had had a problem. I'd gotten a message from another member that said he was unable to email me. Instead, he'd sent the message via a "wink." SeniorMatch's customer support is supposed to be available 24/7 yet, I had to leave a voice mail and no one ever called me back. All in all it was a very eye opening and disappointing experience.
In summary, I would not recommend Senior Match to a friend.
