Federal officials are suing Match.com's owner for allegedly tricking customers into signing up for paid subscriptions to the popular dating website and then keeping them as subscribers through "deceptive" cancellation policies.

According to a press release from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Match Group, the company that owns a number of dating websites and apps, sent Match.com users fake "love interest ads" to entice them to subscribe to the service.

Users can create a Match.com account for free and are allowed to browse other profiles, but only those with paid subscriptions are able to see the profiles that liked or favorited them on the website or read the messages they receive. (The subscription cost varies according to the package, but amounts to $20 a month on average.)

The FTC is alleging that the company sent emails to nonsubscribers on Match.com about accounts that liked or favorited their account, messaged them on the website, or emailed them all as part of a bid by the company to persuade people to subscribe — even though those accounts had been flagged as fraudulent and were likely run by someone trying to carry out a romance scam.

As a result, between June 2016 to May 2018, some 499,691 users had subscribed to Match.com within 24 hours of getting an email about a like or a message from a fraudulent account, the lawsuit stated.

Many of those subscribers wound up interacting with a scammer on the website, the FTC said, thereby exposing them to the risk of fraud.

