People are utter morons and news reporters are worse and this one was probably bought off...

I opened my web browser after my formerly trusty iBook crashed this evening to find this story on the Ashley-Madison dating service.
Does anyone else but me recognize a scam when they read about one? Or is able to pick out stories inspired by good press releases and a high paid public relations firm?
I started to write about this a couple days ago and then thought better of it. Here is what I had to say then.
The other morning my wife texted me and asked if I had ever heard of Ashley-Madison. I instantly panicked thinking perhaps I had forgotten to turn on private browsing while using firefox, but then I realized I was thinking probably of Victoria's Secret and was able to just text back a question mark. She seemed pleased to know I did not know what she was talking about (as usual).
She had heard on the news that Ashley-Madison had been banned from advertising on the Super-Bowl because of the nature of their advertising.
Ashley-Madison is a website that provides a meeting place for married people to have affairs, or so it is advertised.
I was somewhat intrigued, and as my habit of drinking 5 cups of coffee in the morning sometimes requires me to spend time in the little echoey room with the uncomfortable white chair, and since my wireless card is now working again I decided to do some research, in the name of science of course.
I signed onto the website as Rob D.... a friend from college. I took some liberties with my profile, choosing a 300lb weight, 5.5 for my height, and Native American as my ethnicity, and stated that I was interested in "erotic tickling."
I soon found a number of ladies with in 100 miles of my zip code which had somewhat prurient interests in round Indians who liked to be tickled. I didn't recognize any of them. I soon regretted that I did not sign on as a woman as I might have found some of my neighbors listed. But, it wouldn't let me change and I soon found out it cost money to do anything so I sent a free wink to a rather large lady and logged out.
A day later I checked my, or should I say Rob's mailbox and I had something like 8 or 10 emails from ladies who had sent me private messages.
It would cost me something like $5 to read each of them.
I looked at their profiles. Most of them had photos and most were very attractive. There was only one that somewhat "plain" and a touch overweight. I suppose she was real. I didn't spend any money and shortly thereafter deleted my profile.
Now here's the deal.
The commerce department can take my computer and make me prove I own all the songs on it, but they don't make Ashley-Madison prove much of anything. Think about it. This company is making millions of dollars. It is said they offered to pay 10 million dollars to have a major airport in Arizona renamed the Ashley-Madison Airport but what to they do to earn that money?
So, people (mostly men) sign up and put up a profile listing details about themselves so others can view their ads and contact them. I'm sure there are success stories for people as I doubt it would be a complete scam.
I think the woman are either paid to contact men or that a fairly large number of them are employed by the company. In the fine print they say they sometimes use paid researchers to contact you to test the system. I say they have a couple people paid the "churn the waters," get men to spend their "credits."
How would you actually prove that the members are legitimate? No one is going to come forward and say they were ripped off. They are cheating in their relationships. The company throws out a few responses to keep people's interest up and to generate a base income. It is a very clever plan to make money off of people's moral failings.
I did some research on the company and while they offer you your money back if don't make a connection, I suspect it is somewhat like the story of the farmer who sold the mule that died and the buyer then decided to raffle off the dead mule. He gave the winner his two dollars back and made a handsome profit.
There have also been accusations that prostitutes were hired by the company in some instances.
I did see a lot of ugly people advertising so I figured the uglies  must be real. I doubt the hotties would really need to advertise.  I'm sure it does work as advertised to some extent but basically is a scam.
But, frankly,  I were planning on using a paid service to cheat on my wife I would expect some assurance of privacy and I would not post my photo. From the advertising I expected more of a dating service. If you suspected your spouse of using the service all you would have to do is sign on as a guest and browse the list of potential cheating partners.
I'm thinking there are a lot of really lonely and kind of stupid men out there with credit cards. You can sure do a lot with slick marketing. Taking advantage of guilty fools is still somehow wrong in my opinion. But, part of me kind of wishes I would have thought of it first. That dude is raking in millions!