Australians Online

News reports say Australian dating site Rural Network apparently lured lonely country men with fake pictures of beautiful young women, then ripped them off sums up to $20,000.


Men e-found beautiful women who seemed perfect matches with the problem being they did not exist, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which tracked the online dating agency for the past three years.

The dating site director Leanne McDonald is also known as Leanne Viney, Lana Viney and Lana McDonald.

The agency was legally ordered to repay 35 of its victims $120,000 and court costs of $60,000 plus write to new customers informing them of the “misleading and deceptive conduct” that it had been involved in.

Justice Jeffrey Spender said at the time that the agency's conduct was “not only serious but calculated and quite callous” — but didn’t order it to be closed merely imposing a seven-year restriction on the way that it advertises and supplies introduction services.

Surprise, surprise in July 2008 the agency was back in court, accused of failing to honour any of the undertakings. The case will return to court in September.

Meanwhile the website is still operational under the name Chances Consulting, which when you click redirects to Ruralnetwork.com

So, the judge ordered them to pay close to $200,000, tells them to tell people they were deceptive, and lets them stay in business?

Great.