by EricG » October 10th, 2020, 3:21 pm
It’s easy to become very cynical about dating sites. I’ve tried to approach the question of online dating scientifically by doing as much research as possible, as well as concentrating on the experience of other users. And in the main, putting aside incentivised recommendations, the view on the ground is overwhelmingly negative. In fact, when I’ve visited sites like Trust Pilot, this picture of online dating sites is further confirmed - 5 star ratings are a rarity, 1 star ratings seem to be the norm. And in my experience, some of these sites are also guilty of data breaches too. My profile particulars have ended up being hawked around on sites as far afield as Russia and beyond. And in the course of my quest, I learned of the existence of public lists of scammers who are named and shamed! So you can just put the name that you’re suspicious of into Google, perhaps under ‘scammer John Smith’, for example, and you may discover that they’ve been up to a lot of mischief! Another useful tool is Google’s image tracer, where you can upload the pics sent to you by your would-be sweetheart, only to have it lead to some well-known diva’s website! This has happened to me several times. And so, trying to think outside the box, as one does, I thought it might be possible to bypass dating sites altogether by directing advertising in online publication such as the Classifieds.