It was the dating website that kicked off 5000 people for “letting themselves go”, and now BeautifulPeople.com’s booted a further 30,000 members, claiming a computer virus attacked last month, which let members bypass the beauty-screening and gain entry.
Dubbed “Shrek” by those unlucky enough to be affected, the computer virus supposedly let thousands of new members join the website without having their profile pictures vetted by the shallow gate-keepers. There’s some debate over whether the virus was written by a former employee; a disgruntled date-less individual, or even an unclaimed “victory” for Lulzsec.
Once BeautifulPeople.com wizened up to the virus, they were “forced” to let their new members go, in order to “stick to our founding principles of only accepting beautiful people… we can’t just sweep 30,000 ugly people under the carpet,” claims the site’s MD, Greg Hodge.
All of the new members who coughed up the $US25 monthly fee have now been refunded, but for a 31-year-old Australian nanny residing in LA, that’s not the end of the story for her. Describing that she was “getting on really well with this American guy and we were going to go on a date and then they said I’d been chucked off and they locked me out of the site. Now I can’t get in touch with him”, she is going to embark on a makeover and photo shoot before sending in an application to join BeautifulPeople.com once more. “What if he’s the one? This is only way I’ll be able to get in touch with him. If that doesn’t work I’ll see what I can do with Photoshop.” [The Guardian]
UPDATE: Giz reader Terlan pointed out that Sophos’ Naked Security blog thinks it’s just a PR stunt to attract more attention – and more beautiful members – to the site. What do you lot of cynics think?
Image: Dark Precusor