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A Flayrah exclusive investigation for Furry public interest



Josh is a 22-year old single wolf looking for a mate on Pounced.org. He describes himself as "friendly, honest, caring, and fun." He warns other hopeful romantics about another dating site, that he says overcharged him after he canceled service: "Save your money, and avoid frustration."

FurFling.com will turn one year old in late 2013. After nine months of activity, it boasts 21,000 users in posts to Twitter- an amount called into question by evidence later in this article. It's by no means the first dating site that targets furries. Others, like Pounced (established in 2003) offer free service by and for fans. But FurFling differs by bringing new methods to entice payments, usually seen on commercial sites like Adult Friend Finder that attract allegations of fraud.

The furry economy is growing, and with it comes exploitation. In their defense, pay-dating sites often tout partnerships they have made. However, advertised rates of active users and successful matches call for heavy scepticism. FurFling is in the spotlight because it has raised many questions on furry forums. Beyond this one case, hopefully the article can inform readers about pay-dating in general. (It will set aside the topic of whether furries should just date other furries. In this writer's opinion, that's a narrow focus, but there's nothing wrong with sharing interests and fantasies. Phwoar!)

Is FurFling.com a "scam site"?

On Reddit, the r/furry community discusses internet dating, and worries about FurFling:

Flayrah editor GreenReaper gives a personal opinion (independently from this article, with no input to the author):

FurFling has been buying up advertising where it can; I got a request for Flayrah. Their tweets seem condescending. I suspect they are not actually furry fans themselves, but hope to make some money off a niche.

Dragoneer, owner of Fur Affinity, replies:

They are legit. I know the people who run it behind the scenes, and they've even contacted FA regarding advertising (but were turned down). Can't say more than that, but they are legit.

WikiFur's talk page addresses their use of "bots", and an anonymous editor bluntly states:

These people are scum.

I contacted Dragoneer to ask for a perspective from someone closer to the owners. I also reached out to the owners. Responses will follow. First, let's get into the issue with more detail.

The loneliness of others

On the Bay Area Furries mailing list, a member asked: "So FurFling is a scam, right?" Members responded:

I made a profile a while ago but gave up on it because they make you pay to read your private messages. Then I noticed that I get an awful lot of messages, like two a day, despite my profile not being that interesting, and the names of people sending the messages tend to be kind of generic and don't show up in google searches. I think it says something that furry is now big enough that we have shady businesses targeting us specifically!

They also tried to trick me with fake female fur names. That's why I will never ever pay for this kind of services. I find it really sad that people uses the loneliness of others, to try making a buck. }:(

I'd venture to say ANY social/dating site that makes you pay for something is a scam.

There are probing criticisms about pay-dating in general. In 2012, the relatively well-liked free dating site OKCupid put out a blog article titled: Why You Should Never Pay For Online Dating . After they were sold to pay-dating company Match.com, the article was taken down, bringing speculation about it's PR damage to corporate interest. Advocates were careful to preserve it elsewhere. It details why the business model of pay-dating "is fundamentally broken", because they "profit from their customers' disappointment."



Internet bots on FurFling think I'm some sort of sex god. Months ago, I made a profile and left it inactive, but the frequency of messages has stayed constant. It seems programmed to get your attention every day.

Predatory practices

How easy is it to verify concerns about FurFling? WikiFur explains in its Controversy section:

Reverse image search of most of the images on profiles that send messages to users may suggest that these images are in fact stolen.

For informed verification, I had a face to face meeting at a cafe with a computer security consultant and furry, SparkleFloofyWeaselDragon69. (Name is changed to protect anonymity. I did meet a real person for coffee.) It was confirmed that Furfling uses "bots" to automate fake messages and trick users:

A user contacted me, and I replied with obvious characters placed in the message that would trigger errors if they weren't corrected. It elicited a reply along these lines: "hello, {Script Error Null Exception $Var}." It was a pretty convincing bot… it passed my Turing Test at first.

If messages are suspicious, it's understandable how users could still be tricked into paying anyways out of hope. If the responder is hidden by anonymity, a user might think: I'm a real wolf looking for love, and if I'm here, that might be a lonely fox like me!

SparkleFloofyWeaselDragon69 added:

They're trying to build a user base from nothing. If real people actually pay to use it, then you can find them among the bots. Eventually if they do, and more and more people join, well, I guess it will be a real business.

The conversation continued with a belief that FurFling is a branch of a concerted effort to target other niche interests, but I was asked not to disclose why. Provable or not, it raises questions about the extent of their operation. Who is running it, how much money are they making... and how many buyers feel exploited or unhappy with the service?

Perhaps some users will meet each other for real. But can the ends justify the means? And if sites like Pounced, FurriesXtreme, or Fur Affinity connect people for free, how can they ethically start charging for it?

Business is a sensitive issue, when many furries join fandom for the love of it. Some businesses may deserve support for contributing to the growth of fandom. Predatory practices are another matter.



A message about critics... or FurFling's bots?

Responses to controversy

Dragoneer called FurFling's owners "legit", but curiosity remained. If they are, why was their Fur Affinity ad declined? He explained:

The site's intent is a bit more than just "dating". Didn't quite feel that's appropriate for FA's advertising guidelines. Dating sites aren't an issue (we do advertise Furrymate, for example). And while I have no personal issue with Furfling I don't feel it falls in line with FA's advertising guidelines.

I asked Dragoneer again more directly if he would comment for a journalistic piece, because his prior comments seem to make him informed. (Sometimes business owners are biased towards common interest; that's for readers to discuss.) He answered:

I know the owners, and they are legit. I've not heard complaints about them, no. And there's nothing wrong with a pay-service. It's up to people if they decide to use it. I've never used the service, as I don't really "get" dating sites personally. And I would recommend contacting them. It's always better to go to the source to ask questions than make assumptions, or even go off of what other people have to say (even me!). The amount of things I've heard about me from people who never contacted me, or spoke to me, is staggering. I imagine they deal with the same given the business industry they're in.

FurFling's owners chose not to disclose personal contacts on the site. Many furries prefer fan names for direct personal activity; anonymity is OK, but doing higher level business can bring public interest concern. In that spirit, let's reveal that the owners use a public Whois profile with an address shared with a Toronto college. It appears that the site shares ownership (or intimate connection) with Furrymate.com, a website that claims to have been founded a year earlier in Montreal. Both sites appear built with the same software and made to link with each other; and even venture to defend, towards nobody in particular, "Furfling not a scam." FurryMate seems oriented towards vanilla romance, with some free and some paid service, while FurFling appears to appeal to more erotic activity, with stricter charging.

I reached out to FurFling and Furrymate with the below questions. If they respond, it will be posted as a followup article.

I'm working on a news blog article about furry dating sites, and I would really love to get comments about your service. Can you help? Can you tell me why you decided to start a dating site for furries? What makes your service worth paying for?

Do you have any opinions about more general pay-dating sites for anyone such as Match.com?

Furrymate and FurFling seem closely connected. Are you the same owners? Or could you put me in touch with them?

If you run into service complaints, what kind are common, and how do you help people with them?

Do you track success rates for users? Do you have any stories about the best benefits you have brought people?

Can you tell me anything about how many users you have, and how active they are?

Can you share anything about your company profile- people who work there, size, etc? Thank you for anything you can share!

Fraud is as old as furry fandom

I've raised the topic of trust before, when discussing the need for independent fur suit maker reviews. One case of scam worries may not be that prominent, but it seems to be slowly growing above the level of personal fan activity. Be vigilant for the future.

Update, May 2014:

Comment from Dragoneer: