Dating Safely Online

Gay Match Maker supports best practice on dating safety. We liaise with industry bodies such as the ACCC and Federal Government to provide our members with up to date advice and information to ensure your online dating experience is enjoyable and safe.

If you’ve joined Gay Match Maker to connect we know you want to chat to real members and that’s why our Commitment to Genuine Profiles is a priority.

We were the first Australian dating site to introduce a profile verification system and we have a strong commitment to genuine profiles. Unlike some other sites we don’t use AI (artificial intelligence) to review profiles, photos or verification. Site monitoring is done manually by our experienced Support team and we take a strong stance against online activity that is fraudulent or breaches our Terms of Use.

Internet dating, along with any online interaction, requires you to be careful about sharing personal information. So it’s important that we draw your attention to a few things to keep in mind to ensure you have a positive experience when dating online.

Protect your Personal Information & Data

• Create an email to use exclusively for your online dating profile.
• Ensure you have a strong password which is different from others that you use and change it regularly.
• Don’t immediately share your email, phone number or any personal information if requested.
• Don’t use your actual name, email address or date of birth in your profile name, eg. JosieTrainer1995
• If a member sends you a link, don’t click on it or download any files they send you unless you are confident they are genuine.

IMPORTANT: If at any time you feel uncomfortable about what another member is asking you to do, or feel they may be a scammer, please use the Report Member feature. You also have the option to Block the member or Leave the conversation.

Don’t move offsite too quickly
Scammers will often ask you to move offsite on their first reply or claim they can only share photos on another chat platform or via email.

Our Messenger is an instant message system and both standard and Premium members can reply to all messages and share photos so there is no reason to move to a less secure chatting platform. And you can report a member’s conversation via the Report Sender feature so we can see your interaction which will help us investigate your report.

IMPORTANT: We recommend you keep chatting on site until you are confident the other member is genuine. You can read more about dating scams here.

What if someone is misrepresenting themselves?
Regardless of how good our systems are, there will always be a small number of people who misrepresent themselves online. This could be catfishing where the person is pretending to be someone else, or it might just be saying they’re single when they are actually married. It could be that their photos are a few years old and they’re a few kilos heavier, or they might have altered their date of birth by a couple of years.

Although there is little we can do at the point of registration to catch someone misrepresenting themselves, we rely on members to let us know if there is something about a profile they feel should be brought to our attention.

We have an extensive list of reasons you can report a member and we ask that you provide additional information when making the report so that our Support team can fully investigate. We can force the member to profile verify, age verify and if we find the member is not genuine we will ban the profile and take measures to limit the chances of the member being able to register again. 

IMPORTANT:  You can set your profile to only be messaged by Verified members and you can also filter your Search results for members who are Verified or Age Verified. That way you can be confident the person you are chatting to is genuine. We have multiple ways you can use the Report Member feature; it’s accessible from a profile, from a conversation in Messenger or via the chat room.

What is a Dating Scam?
Australians lost $41m to romance scammers last year. This was a 27% drop over previous years and this was because recent cyber hacks of some major Australian businesses have made people more conscious of keeping their personal information secure.

Scammers exploit your emotional triggers in order to get you to part with your money or personal information and they can weave complex and often very believable stories.

Scammers want you to send them cash and gift cards or to provide them with information they can use to commit financial fraud.

The most common scenario is that the scammer will gain your trust and then ask you to help with a time critical emergency ie. medical expenses, stolen credit card or urgent travel expenses. Initially they may ask for a small amount but once you've agreed the requests will continue to escalate, and the scammer will try to emotionally manipulate you if you fail to do what they ask.

They may not directly ask for your personal data but may send you a link to a phishing site which can hack your data or trick you into revealing information such as your password, financial information or even the answers to your commonly used security questions.

Click here to read more about how to identify a scammer, some common dating scams and what to do if you have been scammed.