Online dating sites in China are being used by scammers to swindle money from people who simply want to find the perfect partner.

Two cases of fraud committed through online matchmaking sites were reported last year.

In the first case, a woman who had earned a post-graduate degree abroad, was conned by Jiang Haifeng, a farmer. Jiang posed as a single and successful CEO of a company. They dated for about a year and during that time, Jiang was able to swindle from her over 100,000 yuan or roughly the equivalent of US $16,000.

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To add insult to injury, the victim found out after giving birth to their child, that the man she thought she knew was in fact, already married.

The second case happened in Nov 2012, reports say. The felon, Zhou Hubo, listed himself as Zhou Bin on his Baihe.com dating profile. There, he met his victim surnamed Li.

Similar to the first case, Zhou had claimed himself to be the CEO of a firm. Through the course of their relationship, Zhou conned Li, telling her that he needed money for his company and for his grandfather's medical expenses.

Zhou was able to cheat her of over 400,000 yuan ($64,000).

Zhou was convicted of fraud early this year and is currently serving his eight-year prison sentence.

With the reported cases of fraud, online matchmaking websites have started to gear up against scammers.

Tian Fanjiang, Baihe's CEO, said that they have implemented measures against scams since 2012. Baihe now requires its members to sign up with their real names and to input their ID numbers, which are then run on the National Citizen Identity Information Center's database for accuracy and truth, reports China Youth Daily.

The ID numbers are from the Resident Identity Cards which are required for Chinese citizens aged 17 above. These ID Cards, when run against the database, contains the cardholder's personal information such as educational background, ethnicity, landlord's phone number, medical insurance information, personal reproductive history, police records and religion.

This may all be well and good but is it enough to protect against scammers? Tian said that he has submitted to the government a few of his ideas for better protection in online dating. He has yet to receive a response.

Also, it must be noted that Resident Identity Cards do not contain marital status and occupation, which are probably two of the most important things a person should be certain of in their partner.

Tagsmatchmaking, website, general interest, baihe, baihe.com, Zhou Hubo, Zhou Bin, Jiang Haifeng, Tian Fanjiang