Ken, just came back and looked at your original email. You're making a lot of false assumptions that I thought I'd try to address, as some people already have in this thread. I'll respond per your "Tip-off" #'s:

Tip-off #1: You are correct that when youy save someone as a favorite, you will indeed get a notification that they logged in, as well as they will appear in a list on the left side-bar. But you are wrong about your other points -- EVERYONE sees the "online now" banner when they visit someone's page, and EVERYONE sees the blue chat bubble when someone has it turned on. You don't have to have someone saved as a favorite for that. "dizzkp" is right -- most women turn off the blue chat bubble so that they are not bombarded with constant IM's from guys. If you haven't noticed, there's an icon at the bottom right of the screen to quickly turn on and turn off that function. So someone can often be "online now", but have the chat bubble turned off. But as I and others have said -- OKC definitely has a glitch where the "online now" stays on LONG after the user has left. That IS a problem, but I'm not going to assume it's at all intentional on OKC's part.

Tipoff #2: You're WAY off on this one, Ken. No picture simply means that the person chose not to upload one. This doesn't mean that they're ugly, or married and hiding. I got into a conversation with one woman who contacted me without a photo, telling her I wasn't interested in someone who didn't post their photo. She explained she was a teacher, and that her students regularly look through dating sites and have found other teachers on them! She didn't want to be one of them, but willingly sent me photos privately. Another who I remember DID have photos took them down, and explained to me that she was tired of getting lewd messages from guys. She said taking them down and selectively providing them to guys she was interested in solved that problem. Likewise, 0% matches means that the user hasn't bothered to answer any survey questions. Yes, that raises a red flag for me, but often that's all it is -- they just didn't want to answer questions. Some have told me they'd rather learn about each other the old fashioned way -- by talking, not answering surveys. (Personally, I found all of those women to be WAY too private for me.)

Tipoff #3: People can change their names if they want, Ken. You actually have to pay to be a member to do that (something I've never done), but they can! I also know one woman who took down her profile completely and put a different one back up. She had some of the same pics, and some of the same wording, but she clearly had wanted to start from scratch. We talked after her second profile was created, and she was indeed real -- just changing things up a bit. But, yes, as I said in an earlier post, there ARE scammers on this and EVERY other dating site -- watch out for them. Most are foreigners. I have found red flags include (a) posting just one single photo of a very sexy, beautiful woman, (b) broken English or a complete misuse of certain words, (c) listing themselves as "Native American" under the false assumption that they believe this means being born in the US, (d) overuse of the term "lady" in their self-summary, i.e., "I am a faithful lady" or "I am an active lady" and other phrasing that just doesn't sound like an American would be saying it, and (e) thin profiles with almost no personal details and short summaries. I've also found that none of these red flags are absolute -- I've found the same things on legitimate profiles from time to time, but these DO raise the odds it's a scammer. As I have said in a previous post, I usually do a test by copying a distinctive phrase from the profile (if they wrote something at all) and googling it in quotes -- it's sometimes AMAZING what comes up. It makes you wonder just what these people are trying to pull. But is it OKCupid's fault? No. You find the same scammers on all the other dating sites as well.

As for me, I was initially upset with OKC because my ex, who I desperately wanted to get back with, found another guy through the site. A mutual friend has told me she's now talking about wanting to marry and have kids with the guy (that killed me). But now it looks like I may have found my "match", too, after 7 months of looking. So I guess it worked for both of us. Bottom line, Ken, you're just plain wrong about it being a scam!

Well, Ken, I got on the site in August, and I've simply taken the time to figure things out. I currently have 19 phone numbers on my cell from OKC women, although as of tonight, I think that #19 may be the last one I need. I can tell you the women are real. I've talked to them on the phone. I've dated them. You're judging the site by the scammers that will try to use it for their own purposes. I, too, have seen profiles come back with different pictures and genders. That's not OKC's fault or doing -- they're victims as well. Have you reported these when you've seen them? I do, and OKC takes them down. I just spent an extremely enjoyable evening talking on the phone with someone I met on OKC -- we have an unbelievable 99% match! I'm quite excited about her, thanks to OKC. Good luck, but don't blame the website if you fail!

I have found this company to be fraudulent in reporting member activity online. If it says somebody is "online now!" or has been there recently do not believe it, they might not have been there in months. Point of fact- I was seeing somebody that I met there and on the very morning he was having surgury it said he was online. Quite a feat for a man under the knife. This seems to be a common ploy with many of the sites to get people to sign up. I have seen it on other sites as well, Alt.com for one. A person is online now (!), yet when you actually sign up (and in this case pay money) it shows they have not been there in several months. Be warned people, if you come across somebody you know on a site and it says they're active there it ain't necessarily so!

Dear Greenwood or whatever you are... All I can say is that you are a highly "overpresumtuous" human being... Too much inside knowlege of how that site functions? Either you live a very "charmed" life - some people do, or you are somehow PR for OK Cupid? How do you KNOW that the people were "logged off"? How do you know those so-called "Dead" profiles are NEW people, who simply hadn't failed to fill out their pofiles? And WHY on earth would you be interested enough in a "Dead" profile to WANT to "go back" and view it? Also, claims of talking to "many" women is also highly unlikely... And as for the balance of your response, I am NOT STUPID! I know about scammers, being polite when writing a lady, showing eyes in a picture, etc. Get real, Man... You somehow have developed a rather "high" opinion of yourself? So, give other people some credit... You DON'T know all of the answers. Especially what makes women do the things that they do? Bottom line: Ok Cupid, just like Facebook is nothing but another clever MARKETING TOOL. The whole idea is to "hook people in " and keep them coming back... And if that means scamming or stringing some people along, they will do it... And you have ABSOLUTELY NO PROOF how many of the so-called women that you communicated with were "Real", "Fakes", Ok Cupid Staff, etc. The Website IS a Scam... I even saw one lady's profile disappear and come back with a GUY'S NAME and PICTURE!!! Explain that one, Sherlock? Sure, *some* people may make a connection... That's the law of averages... However, I bet most men and women leave that sight disappointed... And if you never exchange any PHONE NUMBERS? The probability of that person NOT being "Real" is very high...