Complaint Review: Various Inc.

Adultfriendfinder, and the numerous affiliates of "Various, Inc" is a very deceptive, unethical, and abusive company. I have been a member of their site both as a free and paying subscriber, and I can list, and attest to,  a number of the deceptive and abusive practices.  These include:

1. Creating false profiles, often with photos of celebrity (i.e. porn stars) or very attractive individuals, and listing these in close proximity to the user's registered location. The user then seeks to contact this person, but the person often does not exist, or the profile is false (the advertised user is not a real person). In fact, a few times I have seen the same photo under multiple profiles in different locations.

2. Using false profiles to initiate contact with the registered user. For example, on aff.com, I am often directly contacted by an individual "user", often in close proximity to me, who "flirts" with me online.  When I click the person's profile, I am often redirected to a page that requests that I become a paid "Gold" member in order to see this individual's profile information. This almost always happens. I receive numerous contacts of this kind, and always I am asked to pay money. These users are not real people, they are created by aff.com to solicit membership to their pay site, which has several paid levels. For example, as a "Silver" member I cannot view or contact "new" users (those who recently joined their site). However, oddly, all of their "flirtatious" new users are 1. very attractive 2. In close proximity 3. False profiles.  It looks like this (actual example):

"m09r09

Flirted with you" (very often these false profiles are numerical, like Susan1222, Lisabeth 1245, etc, the style is very similar and this is a telltale signature of their false profiles)
30/F
East Brunswick, New Jersey, United States (in close proximity to me)
Flirt Back (Link provided: I can click this to flirt back)
I click the link to flirt back or to view the user's profile...

Result:

I get this statement on a new page..
"m09r09 is a new member -
Gold Members get exclusive access to new members for 3 days - upgrade to a Gold Membership now to contact m09r09!"
(their paid plans are listed there)

User m09r09 is not a real person.  This is a false profile created by the Aff.com/Various, Inc. employees to solicit paid Gold memberships  In fact, I would say that a large number of false profiles exist on the Various, Inc. affiliated sites, filled generally with very generic information and attractive images (of whom I have no idea, but I know that a number of these people are porn stars or people whose images have been stolen off the Internet).

I would attest to the fact that these profiles are false and I am almost positive that they are created by Various, Inc or people paid to create false profiles to lure in unsuspecting customers willing to pay good money to see these false people.

Other deceptive practices include posting the entire profile, with images, on alternate "affiliated" sites. Many people have now resorted to posting disclaimers on their profiles regarding this, and stating that they do not give permission for this use.

I am starting to see more and more of these "upgrade now to see this new user" listings. This is a relatively new gimmick used by the company. Years ago every paying member could view a full profile. Now that their membership is dwindling, they have begun to resort to creating a tiered pay system, using the false profiles to initiate contact with customers.  Again, this goes beyond some sort of "passive" false profile creation system. They actively contact users through "flirtation" and other means (winks, smiles, etc) whereby you unsuspectingly try to reply, only to be redirected to a secure pay site that requires you to pay money to "view" the new user.  Again, these are not actual people or profiles.  I am quite surprised no one has done anything about this deceptive and unethical company.  I am certain the business practices are both unethical and illegal.