Catfished Man Sues OkCupid After Being Taken for $70,000

After being bilked out of more than $70,000 by a phony he met on OkCupid, a New York man is suing the dating website in an attempt to recoup his monetary losses. His dignity he’ll just have to write off.

The New York Post reports it all started last February, when Michael Picciano received a message from “genuineguy62.” The username should’ve been his first warning, but Picciano “felt safe” because the fella had an OkCupid profile. Surely this love connection was legit! (Oh, pal. You’re not from around these Internet parts, are you?) By April, Picciano had wired “Bruce” tens of thousands of dollars.

But now their romance is through, the jig is up and Picciano wants OkCupid to pay. After all, the site doesn’t do “even minimal screening of its subscribers and therefore deceptively creating the impression that their dating service was safe … when in fact … [it] was a trap for the unwary,” according to his lawsuit.

It seems no one told Picciano (who is 65, after all) the cardinal rule of the Internet: Assume everyone is a lying liar.