Category: Online Dating Industry

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Match.Com to Run Background Checks on Dating Site Members

Sex offenders need not apply to Match.com for a membership.   Since the reported sexual assault, Match.com will be conducting background checks on its membership.  An article in the Gothamist describe the unsavory and violent ordeal a woman experienced having agreed to go out with a man on Match.com.     The article said the man had six separate convictions as a sex offender.

I wonder if these types roam around from one online dating service to another, in search of prey.   Many are quite charming and know all too well how to push the right emotional buttons on women in search of a paramour.     If nothing else,  most sex criminals understand a successful pervert knows how to exude that special kind of charm.

Match.com President, Mandy Ginsberg wisely issued the caveat, “We want to stress that while these checks may help in certain instances, they remain highly flawed, and it is critical that this effort does not provide a false sense of security to our members.”   Definitely words to live by.   There is more to searching for sex offenders than merely looking up a name.  I would think, too, is the new member to an online dating site actually signing up in his own name?

The article asks what becomes of people with similar names as convicted sex offenders.   The sex offender registry is, after all, populated with numerous people of similar names.   I don’t know how it will be handled through Match.com, but when we at Corra Group conduct a sex offender background check we isolate the person using his first last and middle names as well as his date of  birth.  We will draw up his social security trace to see where has lived and if his former residences reflect where the sex crimes initially took place.   At the very last, we will obtain a photo of the person and ask our clients if this looks like their guy.

It is one thing to conduct the background check.  But once there are results, especially with something as serious as s sex offender, it is necessary to do the additional research.   On one hand you don’t want to allow a sex offender to slip between the cracks.  But on the other, you don’t want to accuse someone just because they have a similar name as the one turned up in a sex offender background check.    That’s an unfair price to pay for a genuine guy with a similar name, just exploring the dating sites in search of a little love.

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Background Checks for Online Dating Sites

Once upon a time Corra Group conducted a lot more background checks for people interesting in dating and for online dating site.   We were often approached by owners of nascent dating sites who wanted us toe provide us with criminal records background checks.  There often promises of huge volume in background checks as the hopeful principles of the new online dating service would corner their fair share of the market.

In fact, Corra Group started conducting dating related background checks when female friends of ours, women of means and position, urged us to do so as they were single and dating and wanted to be sure their next paramour wasn’t some gold digging predator or an ax murderer.    Of course, these hopeful romantics would decide, despite all admonitions to the contrary to go and see their new soul mate anyway, sans the precautionary background check.

Why was this?  Well, there is reality and there is reality.  One reality says that on this online dating site you will find your soul mate, the love of your life.  On the other hand when you are being promised happily ever after, it is difficult for the company offering this wonderful prospect to turn around and say, but just in case he is a sex offender, ax murder, or gold digger, you better run a background check on your new paramour, just to be sure.   So there was the contradiction.

But now it seems most online dating sites are offering background checks.   Somehow the veil has been pierced and while the online dating sites and offer you the lover of your dreams they can in turn offer you the background check to protect yourself against predators.  Interesting.  Obviously there is the potential for additional revenue.  But then there are the legal and liability issues.  Suppose the online dating site does hook you up with that ax murder?  Then what?

The New York Times recently featured an article about dating sites that are now offering background checks.  I found the article most interesting.  I also found that many sites deemed these criminal background checks advisable  if not essential. for dating members to protect themselves.   Perhaps it is a sign of the times or a testament to our economy that tough economic conditions cause increase in violence and predatory activity.

Whether or not this is a beginning of a large controversy or an effort for the powers that be to protect people from each other remains to be seen.  Meanwhile, we will keep an eye on it.

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Human Trafficking…One Firm Tries to Beat the Cost of Labor

Yahoo reported yesterday that two defense contractors are accused of human trafficking.   The Yahoo Article says that KBR.Inc and a Jordanian sub-contractor were transporting 12 Nepali men against their will to Iraq when the men were killed in an attack.

Of course, the lawsuit hasn’t gone to trial and is still in its early stages.   If it is true, then this kind of behavior should never be tolerated in the modern world.  In fact, it should have never been tolerated at all.  Perhaps there is irony that the lawsuit was filed just before our Labor Day Weekend.

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Background Checking Out The One You Love

Saw an interesting blog article on Everse , Five Resons Why Pre Wedding Background Checks Are Essential that answered a query from a Darius Harris that pretty much summed up the reasons for doing background checks on your prospective paramours and spouses.

Since Corra Group has conducted background checks for dating and on line dating, we couldn’t agree more. The list of reasons is a good list. We would only add the caution that with dating sites you will often find a reluctance to issue background checks.

Background checks on a dating site can deliver and mixed and somewhat confusing message. On one hand the dating site is promising the lover of your dreams. On the other, the are telling you to check it out, in case the person is a child molester or axe murderer. Kind of ruins the mood they are creating.

So before you get married or too involved with someone, check them out. People, even soul mates, can do all kinds of desperate things in this funky economy. When you subscribe to the axiom, expect the unexpected, you will have a better grip on the realities of life.

Frankly, most people don’t check out their lovers or even their spouses to be. And in the aftermath or discover, we get the call. Either they have sensed something wrong, the person made sudden demands, exhibited unwarranted rage, whatever. So then they call. More often than not, I will tell the caller, she or he, mostly she, already knows the answers to the questions. Something is wrong. Only now she, or he, wants closure. To know for sure.

Sometimes it’s the friends who put the future spouse or paramour up to checking out the interested party. She, or he, is too caught up in the romance to sense there is something wrong. All those kind words and flowers tend to cloud the view. The friends, however, can be amazing objective. When it is not their own issues of concern, they can easily see the forest from the trees. But with their own involvements, as with the majority of us, we can never see as clearly. It happens like that. The universe’s joke on we mere mortals.

The last thing we would recommend is that you consider the OFAC or Terror Report. We realize the odds are extremely slim that your paramour would be a terrorists. But there are all kinds of lists and the OFAC reports persons who are excluded from doing business in the United States. For the few bucks, it is worth it. The odds are very slim, but you never really know.

And if you do discover negative aspects to the list provided on EVerse, don’t hang around. We suggest you then consult Paul Simon’s timeless rock and roll classic, “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover.”

Check them out before you hire.