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How Ashley Madison conned users into paying to flirt with fembots

Published Sep 9th, 2015 9:15PM EDT
Ashley Madison Hack Scandal Robot Users

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It seems cheating website Ashley Madison created an army of fembots to flirt with new male users and trick them into thinking that there were hordes of women ready to jump into bed with them the minute they signed up for an account. Gizmodo’s Annalee Newitz has taken an in-depth look at some leaked information revealed in the massive Ashley Madison hack and has pieced together the site’s sneaky scheme for fooling men into thinking that they were ravishing objects of uncontrollable female desire.

RELATED: This list of commonly used Ashley Madison passwords will make you shake your head

Newitz reports that Ashley Madison was notorious for creating “Angel” profiles, which are profiles of fake women designed to lure men onto the site to get them to pay for credits that will allow them to continue flirting.

“To the Ashley Madison ‘guest,’ or non-paying member, it would appear that he was being personally contacted by eager women,” Newitz explains. “But if he wanted to read or respond to them, he would have to shell out for a package of Ashley Madison credits, which range in price from $60 to $290. Each subsequent message and chat cost the man credits. As documents from company e-mails now reveal, 80 percent of first purchases on Ashley Madison were a result of a man trying to contact a bot, or reading a message from one.”

Many Ashley Madison users were not happy to pay for credits only to find out that they’d paid money to flirt with a fembot, of course. This led one user to file a formal complaint against the site and the Attorney General for the state of California even sent a letter to parent company Avid Life demanding that it explain itself.

Avid Life basically said that “criminal elements” were creating fake profiles on the site and that it would refund any users who paid to flirt with fake profiles.

Incidentally, this new report backs up the claims of former Ashley Madison spokesmodel Michelle “Bombshell” McGee, who alleged that the company used her profile to flirt with unsuspecting male users despite the fact that she never logged into the site after creating her profile.

The full Gizmodo story is worth reading and can be found here.

Brad Reed
Brad Reed Staff Writer

Brad Reed has written about technology for over eight years at BGR.com and Network World. Prior to that, he wrote freelance stories for political publications such as AlterNet and the American Prospect. He has a Master's Degree in Business and Economics Journalism from Boston University.