I can only imagine what the bounce rate is when you put the payment details after the signup for a nerfed account. You can't do much until you upload a photo of yourself and by then they have already gotten something from you: the appearance of activity and photos they can dangle in front of other users. What do they call that again… bait for the lobster trap?
http://www.woome.com/woome/privacy/
Use of Information Obtained by WooMe
When you register with WooMe, you create your own profile and privacy settings. Your profile information, as well as your name, email and photo, are displayed to people in the networks specified in your privacy settings to enable you to connect with people on WooMe.
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Profile information is used by WooMe primarily to be presented back to and edited by you when you access the service and to be presented to others permitted to view that information by your privacy settings.
You know, it is certainly possible that those messages are all either spam accounts or real people trying to make the money they paid worthwhile by meeting someone. Then again, pyramid schemes are perpetuated by real people trying hard to make their investment worth it too.
"wooMe is the most fun you'll have online for FREE!"
"get started now! it's 100% free and takes 30 secs to sign up"
Doing a Bayesian update on the claims of automated bot messages, with the fact that the company is willing to make obviously untrue statements on its front page, it seems reasonably likely that they would be willing to lie in other places too. I realise that claiming to be free probably increases conversions, but you shouldn't pursue conversions at the expense of basic ethics. Would you shoot a puppy to increase conversions too?
So, at the moment, I'd evaluate as 80% likely the claims in the TC blog post. Still waiting to read nicferrier's responses to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2170210 though.