Dating Profiles and Scam Prevention

Dating sites that completely automate the registration process leave the door open for scammers and spammers. It is not enough to require new members to activate their accounts. Many with bad intentions are willing to go through the activation process to gain access to other members. When this happens current members lose trust in the dating site. Many members then move on or delete their accounts.

Here are a few steps to protect your current membership base, and continue growing as a healthy online community. I understand that all dating sites are set up differently. I am just mentioning some basic checks all dating sites should take before approving new members.

Temporarily Denying Access to New Members

Do not give brand new registered members access to important website functions. This may include things like contacting other members, making posts, or anything else that might leave a site vulnerable to attack. Once new profiles are reviewed then activate the website functions for these members. If new members are really interested, a few minutes or hours should not make any difference.

Human Review- A webmaster must be committed to reviewing each profile for signs of trouble. This process needs to be completed before the new member has the ability to contact other members.

At Melinda's Filipina Penpals and Asian Dating we first look to see if the profile is complete. A few words or symbols does not qualify as a complete profile. If the profile is near blank the new member has no real interest in contributing to our site. The more likely motivation is to spread spam or links to other dating sites. The near empty dating profiles are deleted to maintain the overall integrity of our site.

Tracing IP Addresses- A webmaster should be willing to track the IP addresses of new members. There are many free services to verify an IP address and location of a member. Does it match the new member's location as stated on their profile? If the person claims to live in the U.S. and the IP address comes back to Nigeria, then a problem is avoided when the new registration is deleted.

Important Note - We will not approve any member using a proxy server. While we understand the right to privacy, our experience shows members that use a proxy are usually up to no good.  

Google Search Email Addresses and User Names- This is a very important step. Scammers and spammers often use the same email addresses and and user names when signing up for different dating sites. It is common to search a user name or email address of a new member and find lots of hits on Google.

By checking out a few of these results one can get a historical perspective about what the person has been up to. While this may be more difficult with common user names, it is not impossible. We have prevented a lot of undesirables from infecting our site with Google search. We may find new members engaged in illegal or destructive activities elsewhere, and we do not want this to spill over on to our site.

I understand these steps can be a little time consuming. But after a while you can develop a quick process for screening new members using the tools above. The time you spend up front to protect your dating site will pay off with less head aches later.

One thing most member on our Online Asian Dating Site can say is that we run virtually spam free site. This is made possible through the great help of our volunteer staff by implementing the safeguards I have mentioned above.