Introduction to the robot. Max Polyakov made millions on dating fraud

American businessman from Zaporizhzhya Max Polyakov is well-known in the media thanks to the Noosphere Ventures project, which focuses on identifying and supporting technological startups. According to media reports, the company operates at a loss, drawing funds from its founder’s dating income.

At its peak, the value of Polyakov’s dating assets, Cupid plc., was estimated at $204.9 million. How did an obstetrician-gynecologist from Zaporizhzhya (that’s how the future businessman began his path to success) manage to earn millions of dollars on online dating? This topic has caught the interest of Ukrainian and foreign media. Journalists conducted an investigation and found the answer – it’s all about the bots.

Still in Zaporizhzhya, Max Polyakov created the company Cupid plc. In 2012, the company’s dating income amounted to $125.4 million, and its capitalization reached $204.9 million. After a media scandal in 2013, the businessman sold the company’s assets. As it turned out later, to his own offspring – the Together Networks holding. In fact, Polyakov simply got rid of his partner in Cupid - Bill Dobbie, to gain full control over the created empire. Today, the holding owns 9 sites: NaughtyDate, Loveaholics, UpForIt, Flirt, IWantU, QuickFlirt, BeNaughty, AffairDating, IAmNaughty.

Part of Cupid’s assets transferred to another of Polyakov’s offshore entities, Tradax IP Licensing Limited, registered in the British Virgin Islands. Starting work with the company NSI Holdings, the company began to create new sites: UniformDating, MatureDatingUk, LoveAgain, Cupid, SpeedDaterEvents, LoveBeginSat, Serencomtrer, GirlsDateForFree.

All these sites officially belong to Polyakov’s holdings. In reality, the businessman’s dating empire is much broader. Polyakov launches many parallel projects, including local dating sites for users from the USA, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and other countries. These resources are not part of the holding but are developed and maintained by the same companies.

The technical maintenance of the entire dating empire is carried out from Ukraine. Most employees of Together Networks have been working with Polyakov for years and transitioned to the new holding from the company Cupid plc.

Visiting the Ukrainian-American businessman’s dating sites from Ukraine is not so simple. They are all blocked in the Ukrainian internet segment. This is not only due to Polyakov’s dating companies being oriented toward American and European users, but also because the activities of these sites are criminally punishable in Ukraine. Fraudulent actions related to the use of personal user information and the involvement of people through the creation of bots may attract the attention of law enforcement.

Sites of Polyakov’s "dating empire" differ little from each other. They are built on the same scheme – identical registration pages, personal accounts, user pages, and functionality designed to "help" users spend as much money as possible on the site.

This is the main essence of all Polyakov’s sites – to get the user to subscribe to the maximum number of paid services. There’s plenty to choose from: want to see more photos – pay, want to send more messages – pay, want to read messages – pay, want to see more profiles… and so on down the list. But hardly anyone will write to a person who just created a profile. And if no one writes to the user, why should they leave their money on the site?

That’s where bots come in. On the sites of the Together Networks and Tradax IP Licensing Limited holdings, immediately after registration, the new user receives dozens of messages in their still-empty profile.

As a curious case, a new user may even receive messages from different people with identical pictures. But this is most likely due to a mistake by programmers who didn’t fine-tune the algorithms. Receiving messages from a bot, the user only sees the header: to view the text, respond, or study the sender’s page, one must pay after subscribing to paid services and connecting additional services. However, it should be noted that this also turns out to be a waste of money – bots are not smart enough to continue the conversation.

The number of bots in Polyakov’s dating network has reached critical levels. So much so that at this point, it’s difficult to even guess how many real users are on the sites. Unfortunately, this site administration policy is fraught with frequent complaints and even accusations of fraud. To avoid criminal liability, Max Polyakov’s company lawyers force users to agree themselves to become victims of fraud.

«We may periodically create profiles that our staff will create, maintain, and administer (hereinafter referred to as “service profiles”). The purpose of these service profiles is to ensure the proper functioning of our services through testing services, opportunities, and features, as well as studying our products and services. »

The company doesn’t specify what "system testing" means and how many bot profiles are needed for this. In practice, this number is limitless, as is the number of messages sent to users by bots.

Technical support for the sites is conducted in Ukraine. Meanwhile, developers deliberately block the resources’ operations in our country. If the site does not engage in fraudulent and illegal activities in Ukraine, then it is of no interest to Ukrainian law enforcement.

Interestingly, Polyakov’s lawyers have not only secured user consent to become victims of fraud, but have also gained the opportunity to use online dating enthusiasts’ personal information for their purposes without punishment. This is stated in the terms of site usage: the site administration may use user information, including photographs, for their purposes: transferring it to third-party companies, partners, and using it in advertising.

The essence of this agreement clause is simple – to get the opportunity to use names and photos to register bot profiles on other sites of the dating empire and communicate with new users. In fact, such actions by Polyakov are criminally punishable, and fall under the category of acquiring personal information through excessive trust and deceit. Polyakov is saved only by the public offer agreement.

Recently, Max Polyakov became involved in another scandal, this time related to pornography. Journalists exposed the businessman in creating porn video chat studios in Ukraine based on companies servicing his dating sites.

Adding porn to his list of assets, Polyakov created a zero-waste operating scheme. Sites of the Together Networks and Tradax IP Licensing Limited holdings attract thousands of people daily and sort them based on their own needs. Some are provoked to visit Polyakov’s porn chat, others become a source of personal information for new bots, while others remain on the dating sites and spend money for the opportunity to communicate with robots. And although this scheme seems questionable from a moral point of view, it must be acknowledged – it works and works flawlessly.

Oleh Boyko