Is this for real?

Dating website BeautifulPeople.com has reportedly removed more than 30,000 members from its site, claiming a virus allowed too many "ugly" people in last month.

Like the old college favorite HotOrNot.com, Beautiful People is a members-only site where its half a million members get to vote on who should be accepted, based purely on their looks. Applicants have 48 hours to be voted in by members of the opposite sex.

But in a curiously worded press release issued Monday, BeautifulPeople.com said its rating module had been attacked by the "Shrek" virus that let thousands of people bypass the voting process. As a result, it had to reject these members.

Greg Hodge, managing director of BeautifulPeople.com, told PCMag in an e-mail that the "Shrek" virus was time-activated to bring down the site's rating system around the world. "It started in a few countries only, then moved on to the entire system until it completely took over the rating module," he wrote.

The virus has been contained and fixed internally, he said, and no existing member information was compromised. Most of the rejects came from the US, Canada, France, and Germany.

The company has also set up a "Removed Member Support Line" (1-800-791-0662) that connected to voicemail when we tried calling during its office hours.

Skeptical? So was Sophos Security's Graham Cluely, who called the breach a "publicity stunt" in a blog post.

Cluely said the story was fishy because A) the company didn't inform any other security firms about the malware, B) the virus didn't compromise any private information of existing members, and C) the breach was contained and being investigated internally.

"So, lots of publicity for the website but nothing for current or future members to worry about then. How convenient!" Cluely wrote.

It wouldn't be the first time the company has tried to trick the press. In 2009, BeautifulPeople.com launched an award-winning PR stunt by convincing media outlets that its members had to re-apply for membership after Christmas, if they had "let themselves go" during the holidays.

BeautifulPeople.com is headquarted in Los Angeles but its IT operations are based in Denmark.