Seeking Information — Were You Catfished on Dating.com or a Related Site?

This case has been sent to arbitration, but we are actively gathering information from people who spent money on Dating.com, AmoLatina, AnastasiaDate, or related platforms and later discovered — or suspect — that the people they were communicating with were not real. All contacts are confidential.

What Is This Case About?

Online dating is built on one fundamental promise: that the profiles you see represent real people genuinely interested in meeting others. For the users of Dating.com, AmoLatina, AnastasiaDate, and other platforms operated by Social Discovery Group (via DMM Solutions, Inc.), a federal lawsuit alleges that promise was never made in good faith.

The class action complaint filed in federal court in New York alleges that DMM deliberately engineered its platforms around a scheme it calls “Popular Members” — profiles that appear to be real, attractive, interested people, but are allegedly operated by paid agents whose job is to generate as much credit-spending engagement with real users as possible. These are not ordinary catfish created by random bad actors. The lawsuit alleges they are a designed, intentional feature of the business model — and that DMM profits directly from the credits users spend engaging with them.

How the Alleged Scheme Works

When a user joins Dating.com, they must purchase credits to interact with certain members. Everything costs credits: sending a message, opening a photo, participating in a chat or video session, even sending a sticker. Credits are expensive — a single photograph can cost $4.50 to send or view; a ten-minute video chat can cost $18. Users who run out of credits must buy more to continue conversations.

According to the complaint, within seconds of creating a new profile — before even completing registration — users are flooded with incoming messages from Popular Members. These Popular Members can message users for free; real users must spend credits to reply. The complaint alleges that this architecture is not accidental: Popular Members are incentivized based on the engagement they generate, and their interaction scripts are specifically designed to keep users invested and spending. The photos used in Popular Member profiles were allegedly sourced from paid models who had no idea their images were being used to catfish users.

Our client joined Dating.com in the fall of 2020 believing she was communicating with real potential romantic connections. Over the course of her membership, she spent nearly $20,000 on credits to communicate with Popular Members. She eventually identified the person in one Popular Member’s profile photos — and learned that person had been paid for the use of his photos in an “advertising campaign” and had no idea his images were being used to catfish users of a dating website.

The Legal Claims

The complaint asserts federal RICO claims — alleging that DMM and its Popular Member operators form an enterprise engaged in a systematic pattern of wire fraud — as well as violations of New York’s General Business Law and the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act, and unjust enrichment. The RICO claims, if proven, carry the potential for treble damages.

The court has sent the case to arbitration based on DMM’s terms of service. We continue to evaluate all available legal avenues and are seeking information from anyone who has had similar experiences on any DMM platform.

Have You Used Any of These Platforms?

We want to hear from anyone who used Dating.com, AmoLatina, AnastasiaDate, YourTravelMates, ArabianDate, Cherish, FlirtWith, or any similar platform and spent significant money on credits — particularly anyone who later discovered, or has reason to believe, that the people they were communicating with were not genuine users. All contacts are completely confidential.