match.com lawsuit: is this a photo of Autumn Marzec?

A couple of days ago I blogged about the lawsuit filed against match.com, the online dating site, alleging that the site used employees as "date bait". This story seems to have exploded onto the web with google showing 94,000 results to the search string "match.com lawsuit".The AFP News site is one of many that outlines the case: Matthew Evans, a match.com customer, had a few dates with Autumn Marzec (incidently, "Marzec" is the Polish for the month of March... and perhaps a surname). Evans alleges that, after a few dates, Marzec confessed to being a match.com employee. If nothing else this is bad practice and something that smaller players in the online dating industry are known to do but not something, according to Mark Brooks at Online Personals Watch, that the top ten dating sites have been known to get involved in. [Please note: these are simply allegations and haven't been proven in any court - match.com may very well be innocent and there are people blogging to that affect.]

In Marzec's defense, how many of us, were we single and working for an online dating website, would have used our employers service to get dates? I'm betting quite a few of us. But the lawsuit alleges that, rather than simply dating members in the same way as a health club instructor might date his or her trainees or a night club bouncer might take someone home at the end of the night, employees were actually SENT on dates with customers - something totally different. When I read the accounts of what had happened, I started to wonder how they did this. Did the employees simply set up an account, using their own name and details but omitting the fact that they worked for match.com? Were they given aliases or asked to create aliases? [Some news sites are even reporting that the people sent on dates were actually hired for that purpose. Match.com denies these claims.] Curiousity got the best of me and I found myself googling for "Autumn Marzec", just as many users of online dating websites would have done had they encountered her online.

It wasn't long, on the first page of results in fact, before I found this post on a Yahoo Group about Volleyball in Southern California. One click away from that page and you'll find a photo to go with the profile (age: 24, occupation: dance instructor since you asked) of the user. Could one of the two women in the photo to the left be the same "dark-haired, buxom twentysomething Autumn Marzec" that went on a date with Matthew Evans? The email I found using google was sent on Mar 11, 2004 so it would seem that, if the post and photo are part of a deliberate attempt to build an online identity then this started at least that long ago. It might be that, as I suggested above, Marzec was simply a dating website employee taking advantage of the easy ability to meet men through the service and, let's face it, if you work for a dating website you wouldn't go pay to use a competitors service. Or Marzec may have posted this profile innocently for personal use. Of course, it could be a photo of a totally innocent Autumn Marzec, or person of another name, who has never worked for match.com or any other online dating agency.

I have no answers to these and other questions but it does seem to me that, if Marzec is really a match.com employee and isn't, or wasn't in 2004, a dance instructor, that the whole purpose of this profile has something to do with creating an online identity - perhaps just for fun and perhaps for online dating. Anyone who has ever used an online dating site knows that users can and do check each other out by googling the names, usernames, and email addresses of people they meet online. Anyone that Marzec would have met online at match.com (or elsewhere) is likely to have found, like I did, this yahoo profile. The yahoo profile clearly doesn't say anything about working for an online dating site...

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------ update 22 November 19:09 ------

All the evidence at my disposal yesterday seemed to verify that the yahoo profile I found, and the photo I posted above, were those of the same Autumn Marzec identified by Matthew Evans, the claimant in the match.com lawsuit. To verify this I emailed the person holding the Yahoo account, who at the moment I sent the email was shown as being online. I also emailed the claimant's legal representatives who have confirmed that:

* the woman depicted in the photo posted here on cybersoc.com is the same woman who appeared in photos on the match.com profile of "Autumn Marzec"

* a search of public records confirm that a woman of this name lives in West Hollywood, which is the same area given in the email I found posted to a publicly accessible Yahoo group and which is also consistent with information given to Evans by the woman who identified herself as Autumn Marzec.

I don't think there is much hope in Marzec, or whoever posted a profile with her photo on it, responding to my request for an interview. I'd like to know more about what happened but, with a lawsuit looming, and the rights to a 'made for television movie' likely to be on the minds of many, it seems unlikely that she'll respond.

----- 23 November -----

Match.com have hit back by demanding that the case against them is dropped: "The woman named in the lawsuit as a Match.com employee has confirmed in a sworn statement that she has never been an employee of Match.com, nor was she ever paid to go on dates with any members or subscribers."

----- 24 November ------

Gelf Magazine has, as well as an excellent article about this story and a .pdf of the allegations against match.com, a copy of the above mentioned sworn statement from Autumn Marzec.

Comments

[John]

I have found the same thing on several of the smaller dating websites. I can't remember which one (i think it was date.com) i had no hits till my free trial membership expired. 24 hours after this expiration i had five emails sent to me by attractive women. I decided to create another free profile under another email address and account name (but without a photo) and try the whole thing again. At the end of that trial, i waited and what do you know, three of the five original women emailed that account again. The funny thing was that the two had used the same canned emails as the first time and the third had used one of the same as the other two!

I got pissed and emailed the three back with copies from both accounts and each others emails telling them i was going to the papers with this information and the next day my both accounts were closed. I got an email that these were closed for "breach of the terms of service". I sent an email to the customer service department and never got a reply.

When i used yahoo personals i found a few fake people too; one of which started spamming my email with porn ads.

Match.com also seems to have a few very suspicious profiles. These profiles just appear in searches every few days and have one short paragraph about the person. They usually put in the "looking for" section "Any" for everything so they show up in everyone’s searches. Oh, the person is usually very attractive and never responds to any emails. Lastly, the profiles are usually deleted in a month and replaced with new ones.

My honest opinion of what’s going on? On the smaller dating sites or the start up sites, they are in fact using fake profiles. I have experienced this first hand and can say with 100% certainty it does happen. I think though the larger, more established sites like match and yahoo are being plagued by ad companies and porn sites that create these fake profiles with the intention of getting your real email address so they can send you junk mail.
Just my 2 copper.

Jonathan.

[Mike]

I have been on match.com off and on for a while and just when I think I got these clowns figured out they throw in a twist. I complained to match that whenever I cancel my subscription I would inevitably get an email to entice me to reactivate my account only to find out it is from a Russian girl if from an actuall person at all. Once I turned the heat up on match.com I started to get bombarded by emails from Russian women who of course start out by saying they are in the states. They emails are all very similar with other email addresses to contact them. Most of the profiles aren't even active which leaves me to believe that the are being sent from inside match.com because you have to have an active profile and pay to send emails. Match.com is a fraud based business in my opinion and the only way to break free from these ass puppets is to remove yourself completely from the site but to most people this site is an aphrodisiac and most people will hold on in hopes to find that "perfect match" which WILL NOT happen. I was addicted to the site when I was going through my divorce and match.com knows that's when they can get their meat hooks in you for along time! Shame on match.com

[amy]

I've been on Match for awhile with no luck, but no problems, EXCEPT for the psycho that swore I worked for Match because I wouldn't respond to his emails. I just had to tell him: "I don't work for Match, I'm just physically repulsed by you."

[lyn]

match.com is FAR from innocent. they routinely send out fake emails, conveniently timed with the expiration of one's membership, from fake people who are allegedly very interested in YOU. of course, to read these emails, one has to shell out another 30 bucks to re-up the membership, all so you can find out it was bullsh*t in the first place. genius, i tell ya! gotta love those marketing savants!!