Man Sues OKCupid After Getting Scammed Out Of $70,000

Finding love on OkCupid: good. Getting scammed out of thousands of dollars on OkCupid: not so much.

Unfortunately for Michael Picciano, he falls into the latter category. Picciano is now suing OkCupid and its parent company, IAC, for failing to conduct “even minimal screening of its subscribers and therefore deceptively creating the impression that their dating service was safe . . . when in fact . . . [it] was a trap for the unwary,” he says in his Manhattan civil suit.

It all began back in February 2013, when he received a message from “genuineguy62.” (Is it just me or is that, like, the least trustworthy name ever?) After 10 days of chatting on the site, Picciano continued the conversation with the man, who called himself Bruce Thompson, via personal e-mails. A month following that, Thompson made his first telephone call to Picciano. And by the end of March, the two had canceled their OkCupid subscriptions because “they had found each other.”

Shortly afterwards, Thompson asked Picciano to wire him money to cover “unexpected fees ”incurred while setting up a new computer parts business. Picciano says he made four wire transfers in steadily increasing amounts to addresses in Texas, Ontario and England. In total, the payments added up to $70,460.

Four weeks following his first payment, Picciano involved the police. A friend of his had found Thompson's photo and information on a site called MaleScammers.com and warned Picciano. Picciano handed over a $100,000 forged check given to him by Thompson to the police, but they were unable to find the con man’s fingerprints.

Picciano is faulting OkCupid for failing to "exercise reasonable care" in communicating "the dangers associated with online matchmaking." There is, however, a page on the site called "Safety Tips" that explicitly warns members against wiring money to other users – or anyone they meet online – because the sender “has no protections against loss.”

In addition to going after OkCupid, Picciano is also suing Capital One for "failure to comply with proper procedures for the transmission of wire funds transfers." The lawsuit allages that none of the wire transfers contained the address of the recipient "as required by law."

According to the court papers, Picciano believes Thompson is back on OkCupid, trolling for new victims under the screen name "bigheartedbt.” While this hasn’t been confirmed, OkCupid users should take note – better safe than sorry.