Online dating site shares fall by more than half

One of UK's biggest online dating providers has seen its shares fall by more than half after announcing an audit into the way it operates.

Shares in Edinburgh-based Cupid Plc, which include cupid.com, benaughty.com and flirt.com, fell by 57% to 49p.

The BBC said last month that members of Cupid's online dating services suspected fake "flirtatious" messages had been used to encourage free users to sign up for paid subscriptions.

The company said on Friday it had launched an investigation into "a report" about its methods, but a spokeswoman said then that this was not in response to the allegations in the BBC report.

Cupid denied at the time it was creating user profiles on its websites to entice new customers to sign up or that the company sent communications in order to tempt free members to pay subscriptions.

The 57% drop came after the Kyiv Post newspaper of Ukraine, where Cupid has large back-office operations, published a claim that the Edinburgh-headquartered firm employs "motivation managers" to entice visitors to its websites.

Cupid confirmed to investors yesterday that it employed a "motivation team" of 24 people. But it insisted that it does not communicate with members who have not paid to take out a subscription.

But the company said it does contact new paying subscribers "to help them get the most out of the site". It also communicates with subscribers "in order to detect and identify any technical or product issues pro-actively," Cupid said. "The team also moderates chat rooms and forums," it added.

Cupid has been a darling of the stock market since it floated at 60p in the summer of 2010, when it was called Easydate, and its shares were trading at 250p just six months ago.

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