Well, very interesting input from everyone. I've had a number of online dating accounts, including Match, Yahoo, True and AFF, and I've not only suspected false accounts, I've actually documented them. For me personally, distance is not an issue for a relationship, so if a woman is truly great, then I will find a way to get to know her. So I've made it a point to search around the world on these various websites, not just locally. Once I started finding duplicate accounts in different locations, either based on the same pictures or even completely identical "personally written" paragraphs (even though the pictures were different), I knew there was some fraud going on. But after a while there were so many that I decided to keep track of them in a Microsoft Word document.

On Yahoo alone I ended up with over 20 pages of false accounts, and I finally decided it just wasn't worth tracking anymore because there were so many and the issue was ongoing. And because I used multiple web sites simultaneously I also discovered that there were even some false accounts that existed on both Yahoo and Match together at the same time. Which makes me think that there may be some kind of third party that's been hired to help inject more "life" into these web sites, and maybe that third party has signed some kind of non-disclosure agreement.

And yes, I've gotten messages from some of the false accounts. Then when I mention that I've seen their duplicate account in another city or on another web site at the same time, further communication is suddenly halted and sometimes the account is quickly closed (what a shock!).

There are definitely patterns to the false accounts too, as if a particular person is managing a certain city or a different area of the nation. Unfortunately, in my vastly experienced opinion, I have zero doubt that there is widespread fraud going on in the online dating world, including within the large corporations.

I would love to know how many people are currently actually available in my local city. Wouldn't it be funny if there were only 10 women available but hundreds listed? Even funnier to consider would be if there are a thousand guys in my local area hitting on hundreds of false accounts when their are only 10 women available, and probably none of them are attractive. What's not so funny is the idea that those thousand guys are pouring money into corporate manager's pockets under the false disguise that they might have a chance to meet a beautiful woman.

Buyer beware...there's no way to know which accounts are actually real. And every time you see someone legitimate or even a legitimate relationship start out of one of these web sites (which I have btw), you should consider these as being only anecdotal evidence of legitimacy for those web sites. Which is the conundrum, because you still might meet a great woman or man using them, but your impressions of what your options are clearly not what you are being led to believe.