TWO friends went to a match-making agency with the aim of finding partners but they ended up dating the same woman with different identities, the Shanghai Morning Post reported.

Some match-makers employ "professional dating women" to take advantage of bachelors and make money.

Wang Weichun, 42, and Liu Qing, 35, (both aliases), are good friends. They found a match-making advertisement in a newspaper that attracted their attention. Wang was interested in being introduced to a 36-year-old woman and Liu sought a date with a woman aged 31.

The advertisement said: "Miss Zhang, 36, wholesaler, has apartment of three bedrooms and one visiting room, owns plant in Zhejiang Province", "Miss Ma, 31, has apartment of three bedrooms and one visiting room, has a coffee house, parents living in Japan."

They called the match-making agency and agreed to meet the women on April 18.

They arrived at the office and each paid 150 yuan (US$18) as a "dating fee" plus a 30-yuan (US$3.60) registration fee.

Then the official asked them to wait outside. After a while, they received a call from the office telling them the two women had arrived. They felt curious because nobody had entered the building by the stairs where they were waiting, the only way in the building.

Each man met and talked to the woman for one minute in separate rooms. "Miss Zhang" and "Miss Ma" gave each man a phone number, which the men found to be identical. The men then called the police. The match-making office returned all the money they had paid and compensated them with an additional 100 yuan (US$12) each.

The newspaper reporter interviewed a woman who is employed by a match-making office to date clients. She said at first she had really hoped to find a new partner after her divorce, but failed. Then a friend suggested she become a "professional dating woman" who could both earn money and look for an ideal partner. She found it was a good opportunity to make money and later quit her job to become a full-time dating woman.

"It needn't mean working hard, just talking with men," she said. She said the match-making office would design identities for women doing the job, for instance having parents living abroad or a large inheritance.

"I give an excuse for leaving after chatting for about 10 minutes, sometimes just one minute is OK. If the man asks for a phone number, I give him one, but I will never pick up the phone," she said. The woman said she could earn tens of yuan each time she met a customer, while the boss earned more.

(Star News)