Background Checks for Online Dating Sites
July 25th, 2008 by Scott OlsonI recently spoke with ConsumerAffairs.com reporter, Joe S. Enoch, about a Nigerian scam targeting online dating sites where the victim lost well over $10,000. One of his questions was why online dating sites don’t simply do background checks on their users?
This is a fair question, but highlights the fact that people really don’t understand the shortcomings of identity based fraud and abuse management systems in the online world.
Yes, iDating sites can do background checks, and some do, like true.com. The problem with these checks is that they are pretty basic and rely on the information provided by their users.
Want to bypass an online background check? Here’s a hint. Don’t use your real information. Change your name. Change your date of birth. Use someone else’s identity. In many cases, simply changing your zip code to another state where you don’t have a record is enough to bypass background checks that are used by online sites.
Why is it so easy to bypass checks? Because validating online identity information is so costly and complicated, and obtaining or manufacturing false identity information is so cheap and easy. Many have even clamored for legislation of online communities to include checks for pedophiles. This may prove to be helpful at catching a few unsophisticated users, but as long as bypassing these checks is as simple as providing false information this isn’t a great use of time or money.
This is why we feel so passionate about device reputation at iovation. The ability to answer the question for our customer, whether or not we have seen a computer before, either at their own site or one of their peers, and whether it has been associated with a history of fraud or abuse is priceless. It is independent of the information provided by the online abuser and can identify both repeat offenders and full blown, organized fraud and abuse rings with ease. It’s time to gain an understanding of how the real world differs from the physical world and act accordingly.
April 4th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Does this service work in Europe?
April 4th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Yes it does. We have a number of customers in Europe.
July 1st, 2009 at 10:58 am
Hi John, thanks for your question. From working in this industry for some time, in order to combat online dating fraud you need to address three key issues that vary based on the individual dating site.
1. Do you have premium paid accounts? If yes, then you need to address credit card fraud with standard AVS checks and other risk scores for the card and user information.
2. How tolerant are your users to ID checks? If they are highly tolerant and you are willing to incur the costs then using identity validation services can help, but understand the stronger services will cost more and will incur more abandonment by prospective users.
3. How do you solve the problem of users creating multiple accounts? ID checks will reduce some of this problem for the casual abusers, but will usually not stop fraud rings. Device fingerprinting, and more specifically device reputation, can play a significant role in dramatically reducing this problem.
I recommend you check out our new white paper that discusses the best practices for keeping online dating customers safe from online scammers