SeekingArrangement

"If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is" is solid advice for most every situation, but it rings especially true online. Anyone who has ventured into the untamed Wild West of online dating knows that it comes with certain risks.

Chief among them is the possibility of being ripped off by an unscrupulous Internet scammer. Your rational side knows it's a possibility, but for the most part it's a fear that's relegated to the deeper, darker recesses of your mind. A far as you're concerned, getting scammed is something that happens to other people in the cautionary tales told on the local news. It's not going to happen to you, right?

Odds are in your favor, but it never hurts to be prepared. SeekingArrangement.com recently posted a report called The Face of Fraud to help online daters separate the catches from the catfish. The site reviewed the profiles of 60,000 banned accounts, and discovered that fake profiles tend to have a few things in common. Here are 7 signs you might be looking at the profile of a scam artist:

The recipient of the Editor’s 2012 Top Pick - Wealthy Award is Seeking Arrangement. This dating site had a high profile year in the media and as a result the Seeking Arrangement service membership base grew to make it one of the largest website of its type.

Seeking Arrangement offered a number of new features in 2012 that their members were looking for. The site was originally available only to English speaking members but in 2012 Seeking Arrangement started to offer their service in 4 other languages including Chinese and Spanish. They also started to offer background verification to members. This is done by a third party discreetly and privately and takes about 3 business days to complete. The screening process not only does a criminal check in the United States but internationally as well. Once the members information has been verified, a verified icon will be displayed on their Seeking Arrangement profile.

This service is ideal for people seeking mutually beneficial arrangements like a relationship between a Sugar Daddy and a young woman. If you are looking for this type of a relationship or something similar then you should check out Seeking Arrangement. It is free to join and review profiles for both men and women.

Read our review of Seeking Arrangement for more information about this dating service or visit SeekingArrangement directly.

This Year's Runner Up for this award is: Millionaire Match

PayPal has been told by a Judge that they cannot dismiss a lawsuit filed by SeekingArrangement.com. The lawsuit is about PayPal suspending SeekingArrangement.com accounts because of the sexual nature of the dating site. Meanwhile they still allow similar sites like Ashley Madison to have a PayPal account so their members can pay for the dating service.

SeekingArrangement.com started to use PayPal as a payment gateway for their members back in 2007. By 2011 PayPal has suspended their account permanently citing the fact that they allow dating options such as “Intimate Encounter” and “Discreet Affair”.

To find out more about the sugar daddy dating site that is taking on PayPal you can read our SeekingArrangement review.

SeekingArrangement.com announced last Friday the launch of their anonymous phone calling feature. The service is called ICALLU which allows members to talk over the phone to each other without revealing their phone number to the member they are calling. Registering for this calling feature is free to members. A member's profile is marked as "phone verified" when they have gone through the registration and verification process (using SMS). Pricing for this service is currently 99 cents a minute ($1.99 for international calls) for the member who initiates the phone call.

SeekingArrangement.com decided to go ahead and offer this anonymous phone service after their research showed that 55 percent of their members have indicated that they are concerned about privacy. 32 percent of members also have already had a negative experience from giving out their phone number to a stranger.

For more information on this story you can read the press release. For similar dating sites to SeekingArrangement.com you can take a look at our Sugar Daddy dating category.

This Friday, on his popular CBS show Dr. Phil, Dr. Phil McGraw will take on the hot topic of "Sugar Baby Students."

"College girls and recent graduates who are struggling with mounting debt and a weak job market are turning to websites, such as SeekingArrangement.com, that introduce them to wealthy men who, in exchange for companionship -- and maybe sex -- help them pay their bills," says the episode description on DrPhil.com. "Is this the Internet version of the world's oldest occupation, or just a niche dating site?" The episode will feature thoughts from 4 sugar babies, a former prosecutor and CNN analyst, and Brandon Wade, the founder of Seeking Arrangement.com - and sparks are guaranteed to fly.

"While I am honored that Dr. Phil chose to work with SeekingArrangement.com rather than other sugar daddy dating websites to create a segment to educate the world on the sugar lifestyle," Brandon Wade wrote on the dating site's blog, "I was not too happy with the approach taken by the show's producers." Though he initially thought that appearing on the show would facilitate "an intelligent discussion into the sugar lifestyle" and be "an opportunity for me to showcase that sugar babies were intelligent and goal-oriented ladies, while sugar daddies are respectful gentlemen," Wade feels that the experience turned into something completely different once the cameras were rolling, all in the name of creating controversy.

Wade is now fighting back, defending what he believes to be a legitimate and legal arrangement between consenting adults: "While I am open to debating issues (such as the merits of sugar dating) with logic and reason, I am honestly appalled when educated and intelligent people resort to name calling in an effort to create TV buzz." He notes that SeekingArrangement.com, like all dating sites, is sometimes the victim of users who misuse the service and break the rules, though he promises members that they take these transgressions seriously and do their best to prevent them from happening.

As a result of this recent negative coverage, Wade says that he believes it is "time to take the focus away from the question of whether 'sex' and 'money' is involved in a sugar relationship," because "'sex' is always involved in any romantic relationship and because 'money', too, is always exchanged in any relationship." In an effort to propagate positive views of the sugar lifestyle, Wade says that big changes will be coming to SeekingArrangement.com.

"Over the next few days you will see some big changes coming to the SeekingArrangement.com homepage, as we start to focus our messaging on the positive qualities of being sugar daddies and sugar babies," Wade writes on the blog. "Sugar relationships are in their ideal form relationships that empower individuals. They are win-win relationships formed as a result of two people (a modern sugar daddy and a goal seeking sugar baby) who were brutally honest with each other up front."

See what Dr. Phil has to say about sugar daddy arrangements on Dr. Phil this Friday, September 16, on CBS, and let us know what you think!

For a list of reviews on other Sugar Daddy type dating sites you can check out our Wealthy Singles Dating category.

It was a "Midsummer Night Affair" at the Hudson Terrace, a trendy Manhattan nightclub, earlier this month, as 400 men and women seeking sugar daddy/sugar baby relationships flooded the venue in hopes of meeting a match. Despite the $40 entrance fee for women, and the $80 cover for men, hopeful sugar daddies and sugar babies packed into the party, sponsored by the sugar daddy dating site SeekingArrangement.com.

Perhaps it's the recession, or maybe it's just that the stigma of these sorts of agreements is lessening more and more with every passing day, but it seems as though sugar daddy arrangements are more popular now than ever before. A recent article in the Huffington Post, which profiled several men and women in this kind of arrangement, attributed the sugar daddy's rising popularity to the soaring cost of higher education.

"I was thinking about going on Match," one 25 year old student says, "but I needed help financially. I guess what finally pushed me over the edge was that I needed help to pay off my loans from school." The work of two anthropology graduates at George Washington University revealed similar findings: of the 100 participants in their study of sugar daddy culture, more than half reported that the money they received was paying for their education.

Brandon Wade, the CEO and founder of SeekingArrangement.com, has also noticed the growing popularity of the site with students. "Over the past few years, the number of college students using our site has exploded," he says. "College students are one of the biggest segments of our sugar babies and the numbers are growing all the time." Wade considers this a public service, a unique opportunity for individuals to form mutually beneficial relationships, and it seems that many of the site's male members agree.

"Most of these young women have debt from school," says a sugar daddy who goes by the name 'Jack' and describes himself as a 'humanitarian.' "I guess I like the college girls more because I think of their student debt as good debt. At least it seems like I'm helping them out, like I'm helping them to get a better life."

Many have called these arrangements prostitution, but Wade is quick to defend them. "The media loves to use the term prostitution, but I'm adamantly against that," he told the Wall Street Journal. "There is chemistry involved in these relationships. It's not a one-time exchange of money for sex." In fact, he believes that sugar daddy/sugar baby agreements have the potential to be healthier than other relationships, because both parties are immediately upfront about what they want from the relationship and what they are offering. When each person's expectations are clearly stated, the potential for romantic disaster is significantly lessened.

Some, like a girl referred to as 'Jennifer' says, see both a practical and a romantic side to the sugar daddy phenomenon. "I realize I'm not going to have it forever," she told the Huffington Post. "While I've still got it, I'm going to milk it for all it's worth. I mean, maybe I'll get swept off my feet. Really, anything could happen."

So what do you think? Is the sugar daddy culture a thinly-veiled form of prostitution, or an acceptable and mutually beneficial agreement made between consenting adults?

For similar dating services you can take a look at our Wealthy Singles Dating category.