In a statement, Cupid, whose websites include cupid.com, benaughty.com, girlsdateforfree.com and flirt.com, said the company "does not employ members of staff to create fake profiles, impersonate users or use any other dubious practice to encourage customers to take out subscriptions or in order to retain existing customers, nor would the company condone, promote or persuade employees to do so".

BBC: Dating firm Cupid rejects 'fake profiles' allegations

Dealers sometimes try to make fake profiles harder to detect by randomly following some famous and some average people, or posting tweets grabbed from the Twitter stream.

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