Challenging Meetic.com Terms and Conditions

[Simply Shocked]

Something that I noticed after I was scammed, was that the profile of the member and all email correspondence received and sent from/to this person was no longer on the site. I was using meetic.com when my scammer introduced himself to me.

When I went to their Help/Contact page, under 'Moderating this Site' for 'Why did one of my messages disappear", it states:

"The message may have been sent by someone whose profile has been taken down by our moderators.

We have to make sure that no-one uses Meetic to send spam, so if we spot lots of very similar messages coming from one person, we’ll take a closer look and may stop their account.

When this happens, all their sent messages are deleted permanently.

If you’ve received a message that looks suspiciously like spam, or offends you in any way, click the ‘inappropriate message?’ link to let our moderators know.

Under their terms and conditions under Termination:

Without prejudice to the other provisions hereof, where the Member commits a serious breach, Meetic will terminate the Member's account without prior notification or warning. Such termination shall have the same effects as a termination by the Member.

Without prejudice to the other provisions hereof, where the Member commits a breach, Meetic will terminate the Member's account seven (7) days after having sent to the Member an email requesting unsuccessfully that he or she comply with these Terms of Use.

Such termination shall take effect without prejudice to any damages that Meetic might claim from the Member or his/her beneficiaries and legal representatives, in compensation of the harm suffered as a result of such breaches.

My question is, why don't they notify all members that have been in email communication with this individual that they have removed their profile due to a breach or serious breach????? When I was in contact with my scammer, I didn't visit the dating site until after I knew I was scammed. If only Meetic would have notified me that he was trouble, I would have received notification in my personal email account and could have acted in an appropriate manner!!!!!

Does anyone have any experience taking on the dating website's themselves due to negligence for failing to inform members of situations like this?

I am going to move this to our "Dating sites" section where it is more appropriate - Ralph

[KickAss]

Hmm, same thing happened to me just recently. Reported a scammer at Match Affinity and asked them to send me a message as soon as they deleted the profile so that I would know they were taking action. Well, 4 days later the profile and all mail sent to/from him in my messagebox were gone too. No message from Match came. Maybe they are covering their tracks? For the future I will make sure to save all mails before reporting. Not a huge loss this time as I already had most of it on my pc. Good luck to you!

[Ralph Warner]

I have moved this to here for further discussion, I declickified the site in question (no point in giving them any free advertising and I changed the thread title to what I think is more appropriate.

My own take on this, we know that most scammers will lure their intended victims away from the dating sites as soon as possible to avoid any concerns when their accounts are closed, many potential victims I would guess would not bother to check their dating site inbox after they found their "True Love" so having the site post a message to them in regards to a suspected scammer may not be the answer.

What may be better is if the site in question were to use the sign up email to send a warning message;

something like

Our records indicate that member "Name used by scammer" has used the site's messaging system to contact you, please be informed that this member has had his/her/its membership terminated due to breaches of the site rules or complaints about inappropriate behavior.

Inappropriate behavior may include;
Scamming
pervert
abusive to other members

Please do your own research to ascertain the legitimacy of this person

You may also like to visit this very highly rated and very helpful website that even includes "Ralph Warner" as a very kind and helpful moderator http://www.romancescam.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Well, perhaps the last line needs some editing but you get the idea

I really dont know but I think many dating sites try to hide just how many scammers are on their site to avoid their members thinking their site is full of scammers, if they were to send you messages about all of the scammers that had contacted you they may end up finding that their members begin to receive more warnings than greetings.

A much better approach is to take more care in placing information about the possibility of scammers, advice on how to spot them and where to get more information.

It's a sad fact of life that we will be confronted by scams and a grim reality that few if any of those encounters will be accompanied by a warning. if only all social networking sites would take this responsibilty more seriously the amount of people scammed could be greatly reduced

[thankfullnotme]

Ralph, You could not have put it any better than you did. It's so sad that almost all of the dating or social sites never warn or educate their members as to the hazzards with scammers. Or more so advise them they have been contacted by a suspected scammer. We do know however they are more than willing to state the "success rate" or whatever other stat that draws in clients.