Our agency was approached by a woman who had met a man on a dating site. He told her he was not married and had no family obligations whatsoever. She decided to have his words checked through our agency: had he been married, and did he have children?
A Profile Is Not a Document
Meeting people online has long been commonplace: people meet, fall in love and start families that way. But such acquaintances have a weak spot — you know only what the person has told you about themselves.
On a dating site, everyone writes exactly what they want about themselves. Marital status in a profile is backed by nothing, and children can simply go unmentioned — all you can do is take the person’s word for it. Checking such things on your own is almost impossible, but for detectives it is routine work.
What the Check Revealed
It turned out the man had been married twice, was married at present, and had three children in total.
Our client told him what she had learned. He immediately found excuses: all that was in the past, those relationships were long over, and he lived alone.
The Second Story
This is a common reaction: once the facts are on the table, a person does not argue with them but changes the explanation. When a relationship is just beginning, you very much want to believe — especially when the words are beautiful. We checked the new story as well. It did not hold up either: we provided our client with direct evidence that this, too, was untrue.
A dating profile shows who a person wants to seem to be, not who they really are.
The woman thanked us for opening her eyes to the real state of affairs and promised to recommend us to her friends as true professionals.
Warning Signs
A married man passing himself off as single usually behaves in similar ways. Be on your guard if:
- he is unavailable in the evenings, on weekends and holidays, and can only be called at “convenient” times;
- you communicate mostly by text, and he answers calls only now and then;
- he never invites you to his home and does not introduce you to his friends;
- he is vague about his life and evasive when asked direct questions.
None of these signs proves anything on its own. But if several of them add up, it is better to check your doubts than to push them away.
Check Before, Not After
If you have met someone online and something in their story about themselves makes you uneasy — family, work, past — it is better to check it before the relationship goes too far. A check takes time, but it can save much more: feelings, money and years of your life.