Technically it was a conglomerate of 3 dating sites, but together those three sites comprised 2.7 million male users and only ONE actual female user, the rest of the female accounts were all fake profiles. In order to sign up for this site dudes had to fork over 80,000 Yen ($646 USD) for the chance to date some of Japan‘s most attractive women. It’s being reported that the 9 Tetsuo Miura Group executives taken in to custody for this scam brought in $52.6 MILLION in fees since 2004. Again, all of those fees were paid for by single men hoping to meet single women, only the odds of a single man meeting a single woman on this site was 1 in 2.7 million, since there was only one actual woman on the site who paid the $646 initiation fee. It gets even weirder though…
The three sites together had 2.7million registered members – but bachelors had been enticed to sign up by members of male staff pretending to be women.
Police raided homes and arrested nine executives believed to be behind the fake sites.
In this latest case, victims were lured into paying 80,000 Yen (£475) to subscribe via Japan’s largest social networking site and phone app Line, text messages and e-mail.
But the female profiles were complete shams, often using pictures of pretty girls ripped off from elsewhere including profiles on genuine matchmaking services.
Thirty male employees, nicknamed ‘meat men’ and earning outrageous salaries, worked part-time masquerading as flirty girls in a bid to snare unsuspecting singletons.
Internet marketing firm Tetsuo Miura Group, which set up the sites in 2004, had raked in 6.6billion Yen (£34m) in fees, it was reported.
One victim spent the equivalent of almost £69,000 interacting with what he thought were hot girls interested in him.
Founder Tetsuo Miura, 42, and eight other workers were taken into custody for questioning by police in Chiba, east of Tokyo.
They were arrested on suspicion of fraud.
‘Suspicion of fraud’? Ya think? 2.7 million dudes forking over money for this site and there’s only ONE real woman on there? They raked in more money in a decade than I’ll make in a lifetime, but they weren’t clever enough to hide their scam and now they’ll likely be going to jail for fraud.
What kills me though is this, why not just make it free for women to get on the site? If they knew there was only one real woman who’d paid the dues, why not just make it free for ladies and see an influx of new members? They wouldn’t have lost any money at all opening it up like that. But they didn’t, and now they’re screwed.
This should be a lesson to guys everywhere: do NOT pay for dating sites when you can get them for free.