How One Con Man Applied OkCupid For Fun, Fraud, And Revenue

How One Con Man Applied OkCupid For Fun, Fraud, And Revenue

“All summer time very long, he kept saying he had been likely to buy a location available to you,” claims Andrew. “Or hire a spot for per year. Everytime a property went available on the market, he’d phone the realtor.” Kay told his Montauk buddies he decided to go to the University of Oklahoma, where he played baseball. The college’s registrar doesn’t have record of a Daniel Kaufman attending. Afterwards, he invested a playing aaa baseball on a team “on martha’s vineyard or nantucket,” one friend recalls year. There are no AAA baseball teams on Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket. He advertised to function as the only pitcher in AAA-ball history to pitch a no-hitter and still lose through walks. He continued, he told their friends, to make graduate degrees at both Stanford University and also the University of Ca at Berkeley. Neither college taken care of immediately repeated inquiries confirmation that is seeking.

Dan would prepare elaborate worldwide trips and invite associates, buddies state, simply to cancel inexplicably during the last minute—even once they choose to go so far as packaging and inoculations that are getting. He talked incessantly of their prowess being a surfer, but nobody ever really saw him within the water. “He’d constantly say he has got a bruised rib, or which he’d recently been out really early that morning,” Andrew claims. “One time we had been tossing around a frisbee, in which he had no concept just how to put it. Which will be odd for a AAA-ball pitcher. I will have understood.”

The (since deleted) Facebook profile for Dan Kay—the Montauk variation, perhaps maybe not the chef iteration—was heavy with images of searching and beaches, but nevertheless offered no direct proof that he previously ever surfed. His feed betrayed no fascination with food, but had been well-stocked with links to products at Techmeme as well as other sites that the technology that is chief might read.

Possibly the many aspect that is bizarre of Kaufman’s numerous lies may be the the one thing he had been really doing. He told buddies in Montauk which he had been founding, as a part task, a unique network that is social Voutliers. The idea behind Voutliers, perversely enough, would be to produce https://datingmentor.org/escort/irvine/ a network that would rank individuals by their trustworthiness. It is motto is “VOW to Trust,” and in accordance with this marketing presentation (for “Voutliers Coroporation”), it might enable users that are internet “trust in individuals once more by sharing unique characteristics of you to ultimately reliable packages of people.”

Voutliers would work by recharging users a cost to “vouch” for brand new users, which may basically incentivize them to ask just trustworthy individuals to the community. It really is means, the website’s advertising materials state, “to generate credibility.”

Daniel Kaufman had literally established business utilizing the goal of protecting the web from individuals like himself.

And it also ended up being not—at least con that is entirely—a. Voutliers was integrated when you look at the state of the latest York in March 2011. Its initial authorized representative had been Joseph Toombs, a higher college mentor in Mamaroneck, N.Y. Its present authorized agent is Marcus Siotkas, a guidance counselor at a fresh Rochelle senior high school; their detailed address is Kaufman’s apartment when you look at the economic region. Neither guy returned duplicated telephone calls. The organization seemingly have put some work into raising money. Relating to its web site, Voutliers is scheduled to launch the following month.

It isn’t clear exactly exactly how CloudMob learned who Dan Kay really was, or which he had been stealing through the business. He had been fired in November and relocated off to the Montauk home permanently, explaining to a few of their friends that he had been going right on through some “personal dilemmas.” The NYPD’s warrant unit took the long drive out to the eastern end of Long Island to arrest him on Jan. 26, 2012 after much cajoling.

Their lawyer, Sharyn Henry of this ny County Defender solutions, claims Dan is waiting for indictment by a grand jury—he had been arrested regarding the strength of the unlawful complaint—and may face more costs. Expected if he promises to fight them, she said, “Everyone is eligible to plead simple, therefore we’ll work after that.” His next hearing, an arraignment, is planned for Feb. 28. Dan is going to be residing in prison until then, and probably longer, she claims: “I do not expect him to help make bail.”

In the demand of some people we talked to because of this tale, whom consented to offer information just on the condition which they never be informed they have been connected with Kaufman, we now have turned down commenting with this post. When you yourself have had run-ins with Dan Kay, Dan Katze, or just about any other type of Dan Kaufman, please inform me and I also’ll follow-up.

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