The Independent this week published an interview with “the private investigators paid to check out online dating matches before you meet them”.
The interview is with Julie Nashawaty, who runs a company called Aste, that performs professional background checks on online dating matches.
Nashawaty created Aste after herself realising the potential dangers of online dating after matching with a man on a dating app who had robbed a bank less than a year before.
Aste employs a team of private investigators, who after being contacted by worried online daters, will send a background check on someone within 24 hours for a price of £23.50.
As Nashawaty explains: “We find out every place your partner is online. We deliver social media profiles, sex offender status, major arrests, and then any other mention of your date online.
“If that means they were in a small news story from 2002 about building a movie theatre in their parents’ home, you get that too.”
Read the interview here.