Swindler and fraud Max Polyakov tries to disguise himself as an inventor

American businessman from Zaporizhzhya Max Polyakov is well-known in the media thanks to the Noosphere Ventures project, which is engaged in searching for and supporting technology startups. According to media reports, the company is operating at a loss, drawing funds from the dating income of its founder.

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

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

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

All of these sites are officially part of Polyakov’s holdings. In reality, the businessman’s dating empire is much wider. Polyakov launches numerous parallel projects, including local dating sites for users from the US, France, Germany, the UK, 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 some time and moved with him to the new holding from Cupid plc.

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Meanwhile, it’s not so simple to visit the dating sites of the Ukrainian-American businessman from Ukraine. All of them are blocked in the Ukrainian segment of the internet. This is not only due to Polyakov’s dating companies being oriented towards American and European users, but also because the activities of these sites in Ukraine are criminally punishable. The attention of law enforcement might be drawn by fraudulent actions related to using personal information of users and attracting people by creating bots.

The sites of Polyakov’s "dating empire" are not much different from each other. They are built on the same template - identical registration pages, personal accounts, user pages, and identical functionality, "helping" the user leave as much money on the site as possible.

The main essence of all Polyakov’s sites is to persuade the user to subscribe to the maximum number of paid services. There is 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 accounts... and so on. However, 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?

This is where bots come in. On the sites of the holdings Together Networks and Tradax IP Licensing Limited, immediately after registration, a 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 the same photograph. But here, most likely, there is a mistake made by programmers who did not adjust the algorithms. When receiving a message from a bot, the user only sees the title: to view the text, reply, or study the sender’s page, they need to pay after subscribing to paid services and connecting additional services. However, it’s worth noting that this also turns out to be a waste of money – the bots are not intelligent 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 is difficult to even assume how many real users there are on the sites. Unfortunately, such a policy by the site administration threatens frequent complaints and even accusations of fraud. To avoid criminal liability, Max Polyakov’s company’s lawyers compel users to agree to become victims of fraud themselves.

"We may periodically create profiles, the creation, maintenance, and administration of which will be handled by our employees (hereinafter – "service profiles"). The purpose of these service profiles is to ensure the proper functioning of our services by testing services, features, and functions, as well as studying our products and services."

What "system check" means and the number of bot-profiles needed for this, the company does not specify. In practice, this number is infinite, as is the number of messages bots send to users.

The technical support of the sites is carried out in Ukraine. Meanwhile, developers purposefully block the resources’ operation in our country. If a site does not conduct fraudulent and illegal activities in Ukraine, it is of no interest to Ukrainian law enforcement.

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

The essence of this “agreement” point is simple – to gain the ability 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 obtaining personal information through excessive trust and deception. Polyakov is saved only by the public offer agreement.

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

By adding porn to his list of assets, Polyakov has created a no-waste working scheme. The sites of the holdings Together Networks and Tradax IP Licensing Limited daily attract thousands of people and sort them according to their own needs. Some are provoked to visit Polyakov’s porn chat, others become sources of personal information for new bots, and a third remain on dating sites and spend money on the opportunity to communicate with robots. Although this scheme looks dubious from a moral point of view, it must be admitted – it works and works flawlessly.