A fool and his money are soon parted. – English proverb
My column on Ashley Madison, the carnival scam designed to separate horny men from their money, is my second most popular one of all time; as of today it has been viewed over 10,000 times. When I first wrote that article, it was one of the few on the web which told the truth about the so-called “dating site”:
…if you’re a woman Ashley Madison is just fine because ten seconds after you sign up the men will be all over you like white on rice. But if you’re a guy it’s a total scam; you buy “credits” which are needed to do pretty much anything on the site (send a message, receive a message, start a chat, etc). The agency employs a number of shills and/or robots which bombard male members with fake messages that cost credits to open, and sending messages to the fake “too good to be true” ads costs credits as well and goes nowhere. If a man lucks out and picks an ad which actually goes to an escort he’ll get laid (after paying her fee, of course), but he could’ve made the same connection on a hooker board, Backpage, etc for free and without the hassle of trying to figure out which ads were for whores, which for fakes and which for real women twenty years and fifty pounds ago. Everything is set up like a casino or a carnival con game, enticing the poor bastard to keep throwing good money after bad in a futile effort to get something for nothing.
The reason the truth was so hard to find is that Noel Biderman, the Toronto lawyer who owns the company, bought up a number of sites with names that would come up in Google searches made to check up on him (such as ashleymadisonscam.com and the like); he then used these to post fake testimonials. Before I wrote my column, one had to dig down about 7 or 8 pages to get to the first sincere reviews, but for whatever reason mine zoomed up quickly and has remained on the first or second page of results ever since. It’s not the only true review any more; for example this one now comes up higher than mine in some searches, and a quick review shows me it has some excellent information (such as the fact that Ashley Madison’s “guarantee” will only refund a man’s money by sending a check to his house in an envelope marked “Ashley Madison”). Mine is, however, still a very popular one, and somebody at AM must be unhappy about that because all of a sudden “real” women (who insist they’re attractive) are showing up in the comment thread of that column, talking about how wonderful the site has been for them. Just to give you perspective: NO such comments for 17 months, then one on June 30th and another on August 7th.
Now, it’s certainly possible that the juxtaposition of these two happy cheatin’ wives posting in the thread one after the other is entirely coincidental; however, I don’t think it’s likely. So I’ve decided it’s time to publish these pictures I’ve had for a few months now; I was waiting for a good time to use them and I feel this is it. Click on the picture above and contemplate the info; this is a screen cap of Ashley Madison’s decoy interface, which allows AM administrators to make up fake female profiles with which to trick male members into spending their credits. It’s accessed through this administration page:
Click on the image to see details. On the toolbar at left, you’ll see the highlighted selection is “human decoy interface”, and you’ll note that my source was performing a search for a “human who has responded to a decoy” when this screencap was taken. Here’s another part of the interface which allows the administrator to attach a fake picture to the fake profile; you’ll notice settings for the “reply bot” in the lower left corner:
I don’t think I need to say any more; as the lawyers say, res ipsa loquitur. But next time a commenter claiming to be a happy, satisfied female Ashley Madison customer posts on that thread, I’ll have a nice link to this column to reply with.
Ashley Madison’s refund policy reminds me of a story, probably apocryphal, from a few years ago. A company offered a “giant dildo” for a reasonable price; there was a guaranteed refund if not fully satisfied. There weren’t actually any dildos, customers were sent a letter of apology saying that they had run out, with an enclosed cheque. Stamped across the cheque in bold, bright red letters was:
GIANT DILDO REFUND
Not many cheques were cashed.
Hysterical!
One thing I have warned women of is this. As more men wake up to the fact that women have been scammers for all of history some of those men will create scams to steal from women. I mean “a fool and HER money are soon parted” too.
(Did anyone else note that Maggie used HIS money in the quote and did NOT say HIS/HER money?)
I am reminded of a woman in Adelaide in South Australia who paid out AUD60,000 to a “nigerian man who she fell in love with on the internet”. She was a big “victim story” in Australia. Oh, please. Men have been getting scammed by women for millenia. It is about time men scammed women back…equality and all.
And here is this one. Apparently this grandmother was so delusional she actually thought the man was marrying her for “love” and she is the “victim” that he just wanted to get into the UK. How many times has the same situation with opposite genders happened? Duh?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1323426/Grandmother-refuses-divorce-Gambian-hell-UK-visa.html
Men are far more creative as scammers than women are. And if many men really decide to scam women? Then LOTS of women will be taken to the cleaners via these scams. I think that is a GOOD THING. It might wake women up to the fundamental rule of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. You scammed us for all of history……so don’t be complaining when you are scammed back.
Yes, it’s called a “quote”. It requires that one reproduce the material inside the quote marks (” “) verbatim; any modifications must be noted by ellipses (…) in the case of omissions or braces ([ ]) in the case of additions. I’m glad I could clear that up for you.
LOL!
. As more men wake up to the fact that women have been scammers for all of history some of those men will create scams to steal from women.
…
Do you honestly think men scamming lonely women is some new act of male vengeance?
How many guys “cheat” because they’re looking for an emotional attachment?
How many women “cheat” because they’re looking for a zipless fuck?
Extramarital with an amateur just doesn’t work well because the motivations of men and women are different. Once in a GREAT moon you might find a gal in a marriage to a well-off gentleman but she gets no emotional satisfaction from him – so she might look elsewhere for that and not have an inclination to leave her (comfortable) circumstances with her husband. But – it’s rare I think.
My advice? If you want an affair with someone “free” – then have it with someone overseas – preferably in a non-English speaking country. You want it structured so that’s there’s lots of geographic separation so you’re not constantly in each others faces and there’s always a “cooling off” between visits. It’s also easier for you both to cover the tracks if you’re intermittently “engaging” in this manner. Nine times out of ten – your cellphone doesn’t work in her country – so you have to use a disposable or go without – so there’s no cellphone records.
And a “non-English” country means it’s doubly difficult for YOU to even think about moving there to be with her. And that usually applies to her thinking about moving here. So there’s automatic safeties and “limit switches” built in.
And – if your wife does catch you – is she really going to be as upset about an affair with someone who lives 5,000 miles away? Well, maybe – but not as upset as if you slept with her hot friend from work. 😛
Of course – this is really only an option for guys who travel a lot.
I’ll bet a many a woman in a non-English speaking country wouldn’t mind moving to the U.S. and marrying you for papers 🙂 In my experience, it is often the hope of an overseas woman.
Wait … yes you are right. But if you have an affair with a professional woman in an upscale European country who’s married and wants to stay that way …
But yes, you are normally right for women who don’t work and so moving to the US the language barrier wouldn’t be that big of a problem.
And by the way … I was one of the “pioneers” of trafficking Canadian nurses into Hawaii with contract marriages. They loved Hawaii and wanted green cards – so we hooked them up with American Submarine guys to “marry” who would get BAQ (back then “Rent Plus”) to move off base and into an apartment in Waikiki. It was “win” for everyone.
My job was to “grill” the guy and the girl to be married the same way the INS would before they issued her a green card. “What’s his favorite color?” … “Where did you meet him?” … “What’s his Mom’s name?” that kind of thing so the pair would pass screening.
Also – what I was doing WAS NOT illegal – since these were valid marriages with a valid license and INS law allowed the “wives” to have a green card to work.
Your article zoomed up quickly because you update your blog every day, and with great deal of original (not existing before) text. Google loves that and rates it high.
Hi Maggie,
all these dating sites are just scams selling dreams to beta losers. I know. I was one.
I thought it looked like a good idea so I joined match.co.uk. Money truly wasted.
Have you ever read the profiles of these women in these places? Some of them scream “I AM INSANE” right off the top. I guess I searched and sent out about 100 “hello” emails. Now remember. At the time I was still deep in the matrix about women, I was genuinely looking for “wife 2.0”, I was easily in the top 5% of men as far as being “a catch” goes. Probably the top 1%.
About 50% did not bother to even reply. About 20% insulted me in the first few emails….so much for “respect”…..about 20% were so crazy that after a few emails I said “thanks but no thanks”….and about 10 I actually sent more than a handful of emails to…..and that narrowed down to THREE I actually called.
Of the three one was insulting and abusive in my first call to her so she dropped out. The other two seemed really nice and we talked for a bit before arranging to meet. One was INSANE when we met in person. She was a very hate filled woman who was able to cover it up while not in person but face to face and allowed to just talk she soon spilled the beans.
The other one was actually Australian. She did well enough on the first dinner date to get a second dinner date. At that date she drank a bit more and I let her keep drinking and talking to find out more about her. She was INSANE! I will skip the details but suffice to say she was definitely NOT marriage material!
Now….if I can join a site like match.co.uk and screen 100 women to get down to TWO and those two are BOTH crazy women? What the hell use are these sites? That was a BIG wake up call to me how crazy western women are now.
Conversely? I can walk into ANY restaurant/bar in Germany and I can very likely find a nice eastern european woman to talk to and perhaps invite out on a date. Just last night I was at a regular place I eat and a new waitress was there from Russia….she was really nice and I might ask her out. There is another waitress there whom I am very friendly with. She claims she has a friend who would be a good match for me from Vietnam. I have been eating at that place regularly for 5 years now so the women who work there and the owners know me well.
The other point is this. Every second adult on this planet is a female. Yet, for some reason, they make dating them hard work and try and make men jump through hoops to be bestowed with the privilege of their company. As you say on AM…a woman joins up and men are all over her like a rash. Why? Because WOMEN are making the “supply” of what men want “expensive”.
Why? Just because they can. Oh..and THEN you tell us how much you “love” us having denied us what we need as a normal part of being a male human. Please…many of us are no longer prepared to believe these lies.
There is nothing that special about women. The whole thing is a LIE so that women get “stuff” out of men by manipulating them through their normal and natural sex drive. When men point this out we are hated on for doing so because we “threaten” the women by pointing out that they are scammers on this topic.
The dishonest way western women present themselves is very unappealing to us men. The MOST appealing aspect of my fav#1 is her honesty. That will be there long after her looks have faded. Women would be well advised to think about why they are so addicted to lying to men and scamming them and what that must do to mens opinion of women in the end.
Come with me to an Fkk Peter! I’ll be in Germany next month and you need to come with!
I’ll show you how special women are – you will love them when I’m done mentoring you! You will learn – I will teach you! 😀
One of those dating sites (I think it was OK Cupid) did a survey about what men and women who had accounts with them thought of each other. The men rated about half of the women above average in attractiveness, while the women rated 80% of men as BELOW AVERAGE. Picky picky picky.
So it’s no wonder men have such a hard time on those sites.
http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-looks-and-online-dating/
I would not call all women scam artists. They’re simply taking advantage of the market they’re in.
That said, the behavior you describe is exactly why prostitution needs to be legal. Some women just have an unrealistic idea of their own market value, and the more competition they face (and the easier those competitiors are for us to find), the more they will have to offer and the lower the price. This is how markets work when they’re free.
Then we can work on the real one-sided scams such as domestic violence law and child support law — which enable the real vicious women to destroy any man’s life without any cause at all. The worst thing about democracy is how easy it is for “professional victims” to use and abuse it for profit.
When I first heard of Ashley-Madison, I thought it was just an ordinary swingers site. Your information has been quite interesting. Apparently it is not intended as a swingers site, but a way to scam married men out of money. (No swinger would be upset by the Ashley Madison refund envelope because he would be expecting his wife to participate.)
A problem with Google is that its searches are “relative” rather than “absolute”; that is, your previous browsing history influences the results. No two of us searching for “Ashley Madison scam” will get exactly the same results. When I checked, your original article is about half way down page one.
Your advice, to go to a professional rather than an amateur, is fine as far as it goes. But if I want more than a “zipless fuck” it’s going to cost a lot with a professional, money that I simply don’t have. I might rather fancy a weekend tryst, but that is beyond my means if I’m engaging a professional. I might like to wake up to find a head beside mine, but as I remember, you didn’t offer this. So how, Maggie, do I square this circle: something longer than the standard hour, something with a bit of “emotional” engagement, something with the “walking on the beach” or “being in a log cabin” trope without bankrupting myself? This is surely what Ashley Madison promises, even if it doesn’t deliver. How do I solve this?
Well, that’s what ordinary dating is for. Ashley Madison doesn’t promise that, either, because both participants in the transaction are supposedly already “walking on the beach” with other people.
Ordinary dating? Put it like this; with a pro, I’m guaranteed a happy experience. She’s guaranteed the £££, it’s win-win. But with “ordinary dating” what are the odds of getting someone who’ll give me the same experience? With a pro it’s pretense, but I can live with that. With “ordinary dating” I’ll have to do at least half the work, but without the guarantee. And what are the chances from “ordinary dating”? For me, about 1%, and that’s a very poor return, more like loose-loose. Ashley Madison promises, but the return is too low; pros deliver but the cost is too high. I can’t win.
It sounds like you need to travel outside of the United States. Not sure what kind of women you are into (if I were to suddenly find myself single, it would be Thailand for me. In fact, I would probably just move there.), but looking in England might not be the best.
It’s not that I don’t sympathise, but life doesn’t owe you anything, and I think you know that, but perhaps you need to get past it and work at what you want in life without stepping on the path towards being bitter about it. If I’m way off the mark here or generally out of line, I apologise, tell me to shut up about this and I will. 8)
You’ll just have to be creative, I guess.
Well, people do put advertisement in the personals for “travel” dates. If you promise a woman you’ll take her places, even if it’s just a cabin in the woods, that’s a payment you can afford, right?
You need to earn more money … somehow.
If I were you, I’d stay awake at night thinking about how to do that. Dudes have “game” for a finite amount of time … after that, things stop working on you and you’re looking only for a Saturday night “Bingo Partner” at that point. You’re “burning daylight” as John Wayne said in one of his movies – so you need to figure out something soon. Sex is very much a capitalist system – so the dudes with the dough go to the front of the line. All my life I’ve worked out to stay in shape hoping to attract girls – nope. Dude, I’m “shredded” – yet the only people who look at me in the gym are the pregnant women and the gay guys. It’s pretty disappointing though I do have to say “thanks” to the pregnant women for the attention – it makes me feel good even though I know it’s only their hormones. 😛
Don’t dump so much on the hookers – because the “free” girls expect you to pay for everything too and, in the long run – you spend more on them than you do on the hooker.
And, while I’m in a romantic mood – let’s not dump so hard on “free” girls either. Yes, they are a BOATLOAD of trouble if you’re married … but, whatever you have with an escort is an illusion. For dumb men like me – that’s good about 90% of the time. However, there’s something to be said for being with someone simply because they want to be with you. And, as a big burly guy who likes sexually submissive women – let me tell that you sometimes I just want to be “cuddled”. 😛 … No seriously – it might not happen much but it’s nice sometimes.
I remember that I “cuddled” a girl in King’s Park in Perth, Australia in February of 1983 for EIGHT HOURS! And that’s all we did in that park. We talked about everything. She was 19 and I was 21 and it was all “young people” talk like … “Who the fuck are we?” … “Where the fuck are we going?” … “How do you play this game of life correctly?”. I probably would have married that girl had she not lived so far away from Hawaii! Anyway – it’s hard to “pay” a girl for that kind of a real experience.
Krulac, honey, if you’re only getting looks from the gay guys and the pregnant girls, maybe you’re going to the wrong gym. I look – OK, usually under the lashes, but I look – and since I am now in my 40s, I look at men in my age range, too.
Some are quite yummy!
Pregnant women? That’s a huge missed opportunity right there.
“No two of us searching for “Ashley Madison scam” will get exactly the same results. When I checked, your original article is about half way down page one”
This actually proves nothing, Google is constantly recrawling the internet, website content for the page you search for, and the others in the results, is constantly changing. The algorithm does as well. Look up “Google Penguin screwed me” for some really sad stories posted by small webmasters. Assuming there hasn’t been too much of a shift in the factors I just mentioned.
The effect of your personal history on the search engine result pages, or SERPS, is one of the few that can actually be compensated for. You have to start by using an anonymous proxy, clearing your cache/offline web content, and/or using a newly formatted, or programmatically sandboxed computer, Some of critical search history data is kept on your computer, the saved information that Google uses has to be linked to it somehow. IP addresses can be reset, and some ISP’s change them every so often. Unlink the data from Google to your computer, one way or another, and you’re clean. I do so often to see how my websites come up for people in other countries, for example
Great post.
My only real question is why do I have to go to a blog to find this stuff? Where are all the paid reporters? And where the hell is the FTC? A company big enough to buy a super bowl add is big enough to merit a serious investigation.
A company big enough to buy a Super Bowl ad is also big enough to buy an ad in any of the papers or networks that those reporters work for. And the US federal government isn’t concerned about cheating husbands unless it can jail them and/or steal their stuff.
So young and yet so cynical.
I don’t doubt the possibility of corruption, but negligence, incompetence and sloth are always more likely reasons why people don’t do what they are supposed to do.
Few reporters these days are reporters. Most are only stenographers, recording what the various interest group representatives say—without investigating whether what was said bears any relation to reality.
They perpetually erect agencies in the name of protecting the consumer, yet blatant scams like this one continue to exist with no action from those agencies. I mean here it is out in the open and nobody from the gov’t cares.
I will be 30 in November. I am becoming increasingly cynical about the world. But in a way it’s liberating.
Who was it that said, “I tried being cynical, but I couldn’t keep up?”
Biderman bought art from the gallery I work in recently. He came in with his mother. Unfortunately, that was on my day off but the consultant he worked with told me about it; she hadn’t heard of Ashley Madison before she met him. She said he was nice and easy to deal with (which is saying a lot for the client the gallery has) but a bit like an overeager teenager trying to impress the adults in their life.
I’m sure he was nice; most people are nice to their mom. But he’s still a scumbag overall.
Did I say otherwise? And it was the consultant saying that he was nice to her, not his mother saying that.
I know, I didn’t think it was his mother talking.
How the Ashley Madison scam works in Spain… about 60 euros to sign up, a further charge of 79 euros after the initial credits run out, and a payment of 20 euros just to exit this mess.
It’s quite amusing how an article will try to put AM in a positive light, and most of the comments are hostile.
For free, I created a profile on five different dating sites. I was very disappointed in how the women behaved. They were rude, dishonest, illogical, and unrealistic. There are several sayings that are along the lines of, “you can judge the character of a person not by what they do when people are looking, but by what they do when people are not looking.” The anonymity of the women on these dating sites caused them to unwittingly show thier true nature to be very ugly. Instead of going on and on about how fucked up women are, I did kind of realize that women that are nice, pleasant, and easy to get along with aren’t going to be on a dating site, they are taken, they are married. I guess that I have met women that are friendly and helpful, but, they are married.
Governments stealing stuff has a long and respectable history.
In the Roman Republic, from the time of the Marian proscriptions, the state or its factions used persecutions of enemies to acquire land. It got so bad, the value of seized property plummeted and buyers were terrified that if they bought X or Y’s confiscated land or goods, then if the current power fell, they’d be immediately targeted themselves.
This got even worse under Sulla, who restored the aristocracy, and Julius Caesar’s triumvirate brought some balance, but really what they did was just divide the spoils three ways, negotiating as to who would get the chop.
The Roman state then used proscriptions and land seizures and property theft as a standard model for fundraising.
Outside of Rome, tax farmers (literally what they were called) “cropped” rich provincial residents in much the same way.
The Persians had a similar system; the God-King giveth, the God-King taketh away. The Egyptians levied mandatory contributions, which could bankrupt even the wealthiest citizens in times of crisis. Much of this was political in nature; either the need for cash created political enemies that had to be silenced where there were none before, or politicla enemies were “found” who conveniently had lots of cash they were easily parted with.
In the middle ages, the kings would use “taxes” levied periodically to do the same thing.
The Church used political considerations when levying “tithes”.
The US government is basically defaulting to the standard mode of all autocratic governments or political factions.
Once, when I was in Mexico in the 90’s, and also in Ethiopia with film crews, we were hauled over and forced to pay taxes to various authorities. It was unclear who the authorities belonged to (in Mexico, at one point, soldiers collecting inter-state duties and checking for fruit, which wasn’t allowed to pass borders (of course they found fruit); in Ethiopia, tolls on highways. If there was no cash, then convertible goods were acceptable. IE, the project manager’s watch was fine, along with a few other items).
Our governments here have become almost wholly parasitic. We live in one of the least free societies in the West, without even the ability to complain loudly.
If cops in Texas can pull you over and take all of your stuff without charges let alone convictions, threatening you with harrassment charges if you even talk to people about it – that means we’re no longer living in anything like a state of freedom.
When you see cops, in general, it’s always a good idea for any citizen to panic, and head the other way. In this country, while it’s not as bad as the old Soviet Union, it’s best to give cops a wide berth and pray you never need to deal with them. They’re almost always bad news.
And the more helpless you are (innocence is irrelevant), the more vicious they are.
In general: don’t help cops. Don’t give them information. Don’t talk unless spoken to, and when yo udo, give them only what you absolutely have to. Don’t argue with them – they have absolute power over you, of life and death and harrassment – just acquiesce and hope you escape unharmed; you’re dealing with brutal tyrants who can kill you – but never, ever help them.
At some point, people are going to figure out that justice needs to be carried out personally, and more or less do away with associating crime-fighting with the police.
Like a force of nature. A malignant force of nature. Just ignore the authorities when you can, and duck and cover when you can’t.
An amusing note:
I’ve lived in the US, Korea, China and Japan, as well as throughout Europe. In all places, the cops were mostly the same.
In China and the US, the cops were almost identical: similar levels of corruption, abuse, lying, courtroom shenanigans, etc. Getting justice from cops in the US was about the same as getting justice in China.
China isn’t as bad as we think, and the US is far worse than we think. The comparison is apt. Ask around.
What about Korea and Japan?
They take property for looking the wrong way over here. They have no compunction about it, and usually only perfunctory legal premises. There’s also very little legal procedure.
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Someone left a link to your blog on ours, thanks for the GREAT info. We had the very same experience with the fake comments after our blog reached the top. It is sad that people cheat each other whether it be for sex or money
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I always thought that Ashley Madison was a bad idea, but I’m surprised that you managed to get evidence that it’s an out and out scam. Presumably someone inside the company sent you the incriminating screen shots.
In the interest of 100% objectivity, it’s worth remembering that fake screen shots are easy to produce, so in themselves they are not incontrovertible proof. I’m not accusing you of dishonesty, just saying that someone with a grudge against the company could have faked them. I’m guessing that your source had additional evidence of their veracity that you are unable to publish without revealing the source’s identity.
Actually, even if Ashley Madison wasn’t a scam, and you really could meet women through it, it would still be no cheaper than seeing a professional, at least in Australia.
You could hardly take your partner in adultery home, so you would need to pay for a decent hotel room for the night. I imagine that any self-respecting woman would also expect at least a meal and a few drinks as well, not to mention additional expenses such as taxi fares. This would almost certainly add up to over $200.
In a completely legal Sydney brothel you can get an hour of female company for under $200. Instead of an aging, probably none too attractive married woman, you can get a young, cute woman from Korea, Japan, or China. You won’t have to worry about angry husbands coming after you, or emotionally unstable women trying to break up your marriage. You will save yourself a lot of time too.
Ashley Madison just got sued by one of the women that they paid to write fake profiles
http://karmasiren.com/ashley-madison-sued/
Yes, I did an update on that when the story broke back in November.
[…] readers know that I have no love for Ashley Madison; its marketing is repulsive, its business ethics are nonexistent and its fake “press releases” are infuriating. But Singapore did not censor it because […]