How You Can Spot A Fake Or Bogus Profile On POF Dating Website

Why are there fake profiles on Plenty Of Fish Dating?

Money. That is virtually the only reason fake profiles are created on POF.com. Fake profiles on ANY dating site are generally one of three things:

1. Someone attempting to market or sell something through Plenty Of Fish. This is usually someone who is affiliate marketing another dating or adult related website that pays a commission for each person they get to sign up. The way this usually works is that the first email the reply back to you with says something along the lines of hey, 'check out my more complete dating profile here [link]' or 'I have some more naughty pictures you can look at here [link]'. In fact, there are some people who use our POF Auto Message Sender software for this purpose, even though it is not a practice we agree with or endorse.
2. Someone hoping to lure a member of Plenty Of Fish to send them money through the practice of catfishing. These people are usually in another country and can be a room filled with people performing this scam. Even if only one out of one hundred people get tricked into falling in love with the fake profile they create on Plenty Of Fish, that still means thousands of dollars being scammed out of the victim of the catfish.
3. Loneliness. Sometimes people create profiles because they are lonely. Although this is the least common reason for a fake profile on any dating site, it happens. These people are either older or less attractive, so by putting up fake pictures of someone more attractive than them, and making a fake profile that is a more attractive person than the real person behind the fake profile, will attract more attention from other POF members.

Plenty Of Fish is pretty good at filtering out bad profiles. One thing that is a dead giveaway that usually gets the fake profile deleted pretty quickly is putting a url or web address in their profile, which is why the fake profile creator's main goal is to get you off the Plenty Of Fish site and onto another one or at least get your communications with them off the Plenty Of Fish dating site.

How to Spot a Fake Profile on Plenty Of Fish

Most of the fake profiles on Plenty Of Fish are female profiles, hoping to scam desperate or lonely men out of money, but there are fake mens profiles, attempting to scam females as well.

Here are some tips to spot a fake profile:

• They are beautiful. Usually, too beautiful. In other words, their profile says they are 45 years old and when you look at their profile pictures you think to yourself 'WOW, is she smoking hot, especially for her age'. That is the most obvious and most common first sign that the dating profile you are looking at is a fake, or at the very least, a real but deceptive profile (reason #3 above).
• They usually have only one or at most, two pictures on their dating profile. Since the images are fake images stolen from some other website, it can be difficult for the scammers and fake profile creators to get more than one image of the same person.
• The profile pictures are on the revealing side. MOST women don't post pictures of themselves in a bikini on a dating site. (some women do post pictures of themselves in revealing clothes but these profiles usually have several other normal images as well).
• Their About Me section on Plenty Of Fish is short. This, of course, depends upon how much effort is putting into creating the fake profiles but most of the time the About Me section of a fake profile is only a sentence or two long and the information is very generic.
• The first or second email they send you will include an attempt to get communications with you off of the Plenty Of Fish dating site. Quite often these 'reply' emails are 100% automated by software as well. Real people with real dating profiles usually don't want to move off of the dating site, where they first started talking with the scammer, right away. This is especially true of a fake female profile. There is no way an attractive women is going to remove the safety of the dating site boundry right away. Even unattractive women won't do this. In your first email with a POF member, if you suspect the profile is fake, be sure to ask a very specific question that can't possibly be answered correctly by software or someone who does not understand your language very well. For example, let's say the persons profile says they live in Florida, USA, ask them if they like all the snow they have been getting the last couple of days. If they say something like 'it's too much snow for me' - it's a fake or if they answer with 'yes I am doing very well, thanks for asking'.
• Perform a reverse image search. Right click and copy to clipboard the url of one of the profile photos in the reverse image search. This can provide a lot of information about other places the exact same pictures can be found at other online locations.

Spot Report Fake Pof Profile Example Of Fake Profile.

Spot Report Fake Pof Profile Example Of Fake Profile.

What to do to Avoid Fake Profiles and Getting Scammed or Catfished

The best thing you can do for yourself is be willing to be honest with yourself. The old statement of 'if it is too good to be true'. Usually the people you see on Dr Phil who end up being victimized are people who don't want to see or know the truth.

There are too many real profiles on Plenty Of Fish. If your gut instinct is telling you the person/profile is bullsh**, move on to another profile. Don't even take the risk. These people are really good at telling you what you want to here so if you want to hear THAT more than you want to hear the TRUTH that is ringing between your ears, then you're leaving yourself open to being scammed by a Plenty Of Fish fake.

There are too many real profiles on Plenty Of Fish. If your gut instinct is telling you the person/profile is bullsh**, move on to another profile

How to Report a Fake Profile on Plenty Of Fish

To report a fake profile ...

1. Go to the profile you suspect is fake.
2. Scroll down to the bottom of the profile page.
3. Look for the link that reads Report User.
4. On the next page you will be asked to select the reason for reporting their profile. Select fake/copyright. You can also enter the reasons you think the profile is fake in the large textbox at the bottom of the page.

Spot Report Fake Pof Profile Report Link.

Spot Report Fake Pof Profile Report Link.

Spot Report Fake Pof Profile Pof Warning.

Spot Report Fake Pof Profile Pof Warning.

Spot Report Fake Pof Profile Reason For Report Options.

Spot Report Fake Pof Profile Reason For Report Options.

Before you submit the form to report the fake profile, Plenty Of Fish gives you a sort of warning not to waste their time just because you are mad at someone because they did not reply to your message or rejected you or something like that. I would strongly advise heading that warning as Plenty Of Fish deletes profiles with no remorse.

How Many Profiles on Plenty Of Fish are Fake

Compared to many other dating sites, especially free ones, Plenty Fish's fake profile count is pretty low but this number seems to be creeping up lately. My personal experience on the site is that about 1 in 40 or 50 female profiles is fake. The percentage of fake male profiles I personally have no idea of.

Leave a comment below and tell us your experience with fake profiles, if you have any. Also, if you have any additional tips for spotting a fake dating profile, leave that in a comment. We will post it unless you tell us not to.