Check up on your date with the Date Check app

PORTLAND, Ore. – Rebecca Nieto thought she had met someone nice on eHarmony.com, until the two agreed to meet in person.

"He became sexually aggressive," Nieto says, "and I tried to fight him off and that's when I knew I was in trouble."

It turned out that her eHarmony date, Dustin Trickett, is a convicted sex offender. Nieto only found that out later.

"I was basically prey for him," she said.

Then there's Jeffrey Marsalis. Dozens of women met him on Match.com, but he turned out to be a convicted serial rapist – who found his prey online.

These are cautionary tales in the era of modern dating. There are more than 1,500 online-dating sites,  with more than 20 million Americans using these sites to find a potential match. That's double the amount of users from just five years ago.

At the same time, there's a growing demand for online detectives to sort out who's looking for love ... and who's looking for victims.

Robert Buchholz runs MyMatchchecker.com. At $9.95 per search they'll run a background check on anyone you meet online.

"MyMatchchecker really comes into play to add a little bit more of the "trust but verify" idea behind online dating," Buchholz said.

Then there's True.com, a dating site that requires a background check before users can become active.

And if want to check up on someone when you're away from your computer – maybe you're on that first date – just pull out your smartphone. Yep, there's an app for that.

One such app is Date Check. Type in a name and state, and for $14.95 you can get a criminal background check, property search even social network profiles.

Nothing is full-proof, but Rebecca Nieto would have welcomed even a little bit of information about a date who eventually attacked her.


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