Jiayuan.com Slammed as “China’s Largest One-Night Stand Site”

China’s biggest online dating site Jiayuan.com (NASDAQ:DATE) is facing the wrath of sections of the Chinese media, and stands accused of tricking users into buying credits and hosting lots of fake profiles – including for prostitutes. A state newspaper has slammed it as “China’s largest one-night stand platform.”

Jiayuan, which IPO’d in the US back in May of this year, was today attacked by state media’s People’s Daily for not really being a “wedding” site, as Jiayuan’s tagline suggests, but more like an organizer of over-expensive group date nights that result in lots of inappropriate touching and other malarkey.

In a tightly-controlled cultural and media environment, Jiayuan risks provoking the ire of authorities.

The People’s Daily recounts the story of one 30-year old man who was annoyed at being – he felt – tricked into buying virtual credits for his newly-registered account. After signing up, he received an alert on Jiayuan.com which said that a nearby 25-year old woman was interested in him. After buying the requisite credit (just 48 RMB for 24 “stamps”) to communicate with the woman, he realised that she hadn’t logged-in for four days, so she couldn’t possibly have seen his new profile page.

That might seem a tenuous basis for an investigative report, but the newspaper is more concerned with the pricier products that Jiayuan sells, such as its hand-curated match-making service. The People’s Daily attacks the “outrageous” fees for the site’s “high-end hunting and marriage service” which can cost a minimum of 40,000 RMB (US$6,300), and maxes out at 200,000 RMB.

But it’s Jiayuan’s face-to-face dating events, and an alleged swathe of fake female profiles on the site, that most provoke the state paper, leading it to quote an interviewee who calls it a “one-night stand platform,” not a “serious love and marriage site.” A lack of a real name policy on Jiayuan is also called out. To roughly translate the paper, it says:

With no real-name policy on Jiayuan.com, this user can sign-up with a random nickname.

Due to the large number of users [on Jiayuan], it’s difficult to manage a complex, real name system; and there’s no mandatory certification on the site, so it’s providing a breeding ground for a large number of one-night stands.

The article then goes on to interview men who use the site just for “fishing” – idiomatic for picking up women – and talks to the boss of a red-light parlor who claims that he has created fake profiles on Jiayuan for all of the prostitutes that he controls. Not needing a real name, the boss explains how he uses tempting photos and suggestive names to lure men to those women’s profiles. He also claims that if he upgrades a profile to a “diamond membership” on Jiayuan, then it’s unlikely to be deleted, regardless of the ways in which it breaks the site’s terms of service.

Best behaviour, everyone…

Jiayuan saw a dip in its stock value two weeks ago after state television, CCTV, reported news of a woman who was “swindled” by a con-artist that she met on the dating site. The woman is taking Jiayuan to court, claiming the company failed to verify any of the information of the male trickster who wheedled large sums of money out of her.