A popular porn star whose claim to fame is once being among the top 10 most-searched names on the Internet has become the public face of a multibillion-dollar lawsuit accusing Match.com of defrauding its lonely heart clientele.
“Melissa Midwest” Harrington, 31, recently replaced part-time Florida model Yuliana Avalos in heading a class-action trademark-infringement suit accusing the Internet dating giant and affiliated Web sites of posting tens of thousands of fake dating profiles that rely on unsanctioned photos of hotties like them to attract paying members.
In the amended $4.5 billion suit filed Jan. 27 in Manhattan federal court, “Melissa Midwest” claims she never joined the dating sites and that her copyrighted photos have been used by them without consent in thousands of fraudulent profiles posted on Match.com and other sites run by co-defendant parent company IAC/InterActiveCorp of Manhattan.
Harrington, of Omaha, Neb. — who became famous posting X-rated photos and videos of herself on her Web site melissamidwest.com and even scored appearances out of it in Playboy, FHM and other magazines — says in the suit that Match.com is “intentionally” signing off on the fake profiles using “stolen” images in an attempt to boost profits.
She claims she’s received “thousands of complaints from American romance-scam victims over the past six-plus years, including hundreds of victims who were defrauded out of millions of dollars.”
The suit alleges the Web sites’ subscribers are routinely being “scammed” out of user fees by “criminals” working out of Internet cafes overseas in Nigeria, Ghana and Russia.
It claims thousands — if not millions — of photos pirated off Facebook and other Internet sites are being posted as false ads in the form of fake profiles.
Match.com, for example, charges $35.99 monthly for standard service.
“While Ms. Harrington is the most famous of all men or women whose photographs have been used consistently in fake Match dating profiles, she is the only one of thousands of men and women whose likeness and images have been hijacked by defendants and used as avatars in fake profiles,” the suit says.
The suit was originally filed on behalf in Avalos in November, and it then asked for $1.5 billion in compensatory and punitive damages.
A Match.com spokesman said the actual “scam” is the lawsuit, saying it is “filled with outlandish conspiracy theories and clumsy fabrications in lieu of factual or legal basis.”