TORONTO – A website that specializes in hooking up cheating spouses who seek casual sex has labeled a former employee’s accusations of fraud and damaged health “opportunistic” and “frivolous.”
Doriana Silva, who filed a $20-million lawsuit against online dating company Ashley Madison, stands by her allegations. Among other charges Silva leveled at the company in the suit, she claims she permanently damaged her wrists while typing fake profiles into Ashley Madison’s online database.
According to court documents, the company hired Silva, an immigrant from Brazil, to create and enter 1,000 female profiles as a marketing ploy to lure Portuguese-speaking men to a new Brazilian incarnation of AshleyMadison.com. The pace of the project, which the company wanted completed within three weeks, required Silva to type about 50 profiles per day. The strain proved too much for her wrists and hands, she claims in the lawsuit, but supervisors ignored her complaints.
Now, she claims, she is unable to type at all, and the company has refused to compensate her for job-related injuries or to help her secure workers compensation.
In addition, she alleges she was misled about the nature of the work, which she now believes may have been “unlawful or improper.” At the time of her employment, she notes in her lawsuit, company officials indicated creating fake profiles was an industry-standard practice.
Ashley Madison issued an official statement on Monday in which the company accused Silva of attempted extortion. The plaintiff has admitted the monetary award she seeks is based on a percentage of the estimated earnings of the profiles she typed, and that amount has grown incrementally since Silva and the company began talking about the situation. In addition, Ashley Madison alleged in the statement, Silva threatened to take her grievances to the media if the company didn’t meet her financial demands.
Furthermore, the company’s informal investigation has not substantiated Silva’s claims, Ashley Madison noted in the statement. When Silva complained about pain in her wrists, two medical professionals prescribed “nothing more than rest,” which the company approved. An independent insurance auditor denied her claim for additional compensation, the company noted.
Since Silva’s separation from employment, the company has found pictures on social media sites, depicting Silva enjoying recreational activities that would be “unlikely” for someone with a severe wrist injury, the statement said.
“Throughout this lawsuit, Ms. Silva appears to have continued to lead an active life and has shown no side effects from her so-called injury,” the statement noted.
The company also took exception Silva’s characterization of Ashley Madison profiles as fraudulent, saying its service is “100-percent authentic.”
