How we keep you safe

Before we catch them, malicious members may create profiles for purposes other than dating: we call these people scammers. We’d like to remind you to be vigilant if you have any suspicions about the real intentions of a person on the site.

A scammer is a person who signed up on the site mostly under a false identity - using hijacked IP addresses as well as specifically created email addresses - for illegal purposes such as poaching customers, extortion, phishing, blackmail, scamming, etc.

Customer poaching The scammer’s goal is to lure users to fraudulent competitor sites. Specifically, scammers contact registered members and offer to talk using another platform or a competitor site. Here is an example of message you might receive: ‘Hi, I found a better dating site, you should join me, my username is xxx’;

Scamming The modus operandi may be as follows: the scammer talks with a registered member and creates an emotional bond with them. The scammer then asks the member for money using an excuse (death in the family, purchase of a plane ticket to meet with the member, etc.).

Blackmail/extortion of money. In this case, the spammer’s approach is more aggressive. The goal is to get users to hand over money by threat or coercion. This can be achieved with messages such as: ‘I know you’re married and you’re on a dating site … give me €500.

Fighting against scammers requires us to allocate a considerable budget towards your safety (moderators, anti-fraud services, powerful technical tools, etc.).

How you can help us

To this end, we provide you with a ‘Report’ link allowing you to report any misuse you may notice on the site. You can find this link on all registered member’s profiles.

A procedure for reporting a scam or fraud is easily available online. You’ll find a description of this procedure in our Terms of Use, as well as in our moderation charter. You may also notify us by sending an email to the following email address customer@mainpay.net

We undertake to act on all complaints regarding content, behaviour or use that are illicit or otherwise breaching Terms of Use and to put in place what we deem are appropriate measures.

Sanctions may include: a warning, temporary suspension or permanent banning of the member.

Our technical means

In addition to these measures, we have put significant effort into developing fraud technical tools.

A unique and internally developed tool was also created to the fight against scammers. It is the result of extensive know-how acquired over the years.

This software, an illicit activity warning system, intervenes at the following four moments:

• Upon member registration;
• Right after registration;
• After a message is sent on the chat;
• When a user reports another user. All criteria are defined thanks to unique know-how and human intervention upstream. Indeed they are identified after careful observation and analysis of scammers’ behaviour and practices (which change very regularly) and programmed manually by our teams.

Our human resources

Human intervention is essential to step up the fight against suspicious profiles and behaviours. For this we rely on two teams:

Customer service & moderation teams

The customer service department has developed specific skills in identifying and deleting scammers’ profiles. The customer service department also handles the technical means of detection.

We defined a Moderation Charter in which our teams can find criteria to use to analyse and possibly delete spammer profiles.

This charter was designed to guarantee maximum user comfort as well as reliability when talking to members.

Extracts of this charter are integrated into the Terms of Use in order to inform the members on the way their contents (descriptions, opinions, comments, pictures) will be moderated and under what time frame.

The charter also reminds members of prohibited content and behaviour and explains how to report illegal content.