Legal

CNN Living has a story that looks at scam artists, internet dating and the website RomanceScams.org, where you can report on romance scams. In my opinion the article doesn't really put online dating scams into perspective but, it did have a few good examples and tips. One excellent point includes this quote about how to identify a possible scammer:

If their spelling is horrible, they use emoticons heavily and they appear to be available at unusual hours for your time zone, they may be scamming you. Scammers often work on the Internet from other countries and use photos of others they find online. Often, a simple Google search can help identify whether your online companion is legitimate or whether he or she is simply using someone else's name and photo.

This story uses some scare tactics that I don't agree with. In one case they mention that the FBI Internet Crime Report had 206,884 complaints last year about internet fraud which cost the victims over $239 million. That's a good thing to know but this statistic appears to take into account all online business including online stores, online auction sites and the list goes on. What percentage of this is deals with online dating? Where are the statistics that compare it to other online industries or email and normal mail fraud? Maybe online dating has a better track record, who knows? You can't tell from the CNN article.

The other statistic in the story I wondered about was, according to Romance Scams website, of their 30,000 members 883 people reported losing over $8 million too online scammers. This works out too almost $10,000 per person on average. This seems a little high to me. I don't know many people who have $10 grand to give to their friends and family let alone to someone online. I wish the author had expanded on this information a bit further and included a few links to some reports.

Romance Scams is a non-profit site that does offer excellent information about dealing with and identifying online scams. A lot more dating sites are starting to take this issue more seriously and have started to include easy to find "Report Abuse" links on dating profiles that allows you to identify a scammer. Dating Services also monitor and identify scammers manually and automatically through software. Singles need to know, and to watch out for online dating scams but, you do have to keep things in perspective and use common sense.

Apparently men in America using online dating sites to find woman living in other countries could be breaking a federal law. The law is called the "Marriage Broker Regulation Act" (IMBRA) and requires men who use a fee-based dating site to submit to a criminal background check, a sex offender check and must certify all previous convictions or arrests, marriages, divorces and children. An online dating service not compliant with the legislation can be sued for $5 thousand to $25 thousand and the dating service executives could face up to 5 years in prison. There is no law dealing with the woman US men may meet or US woman meeting foreign men through a dating service.

As stated in the article, the reason for the creation of the IMBRA is:

The MiamiHerald.com talks about Florida's new ''Internet predator awareness and online safety act''. The bill would require online dating services serving Florida to:

disclose online and by e-mail whether or not it conducts a criminal background check. If it does, it must tell the consumer that background checks are "fallible."

This is similar to a bill New Jersey recently passed called the Internet Dating Safety Act.

Once again True.com is trying to push this bill through. They already do background checks on its members. Both Yahoo! Personals and Match.com are reluctant to do criminal background checks since they are reported to be unreliable. I agree with a statement that a Yahoo! lobbyist made regarding True's push on internet dating legislation:

"This doesn't have to do with online predators as the bill says," said Bill Ashworth, a lobbyist with Yahoo! "This is a food fight between True.com and the rest of the Internet dating industry."

I don't think True is doing this for the safety of their members, I believe it has more to do with publicity and getting there name mentioned in news articles.

The Daily Yomiuri Online has an article called "NPA targets online dating sites / Agency wants stricter regulations as current law being ignored". The Japanese National Police Agency wants tougher regulations regarding prohibiting minors under the age of 18 from using dating services. They have found currently this regulation is largely being ignored. In a suggested revised law, dating site operators would need to take measures to confirm a member's age, such as requiring users to fax copies of ID certificates to dating site operators. There are a few other proposed changes mentioned as well for the current internet dating regulations in Japan.

All matchmaking services in Shanghai must register with the Shanghai Association of Matchmaking Management by next year. Among other things, the association will keep track of any misdemeanors of the matchmaker service.

Each employee who works at a matchmaking service must obtain two certificates from the Shanghai Association of Matchmaking Management. One is a qualified matchmaking certificate and the second one is a matchmaking company employee certificate.

More information on the new regulations can be found at Shanghai Daily.

The New Jersey Assembly Committee has passed the next measure that would require dating services to tell residents of New Jersey whether criminal background checks are done.

Most singles dating online are honest but it's that 1% everyone worries about. Background checks don't tell the whole story and probably give online daters a false sense of security. A fair number of states have considered a bill similar to this but, one state has yet to pass it. The biggest problem with these type of checks is that most singles who have a criminal background would just give a false name to circumvent this type of security measure. A dating site would have to confirm that a member is actually who he or she says he or she is before an actual background check can be done. Confirming ones identity for websites is a whole other problem.

More information about this bill is located at the NewsCenter 16 website.