$683,000 is the Loneliest Number: A Matchmaking Agency Goes Bad

But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are pretty women to deserve them. — Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

For seven years, from 2003 to 2009, Australian-based True Love Corp — or TLC — duped lonely men into parting with large amounts of cash for the promise of, well, true love, with eligible beautiful women. “You can’t put a price on love,” the agency told one lonelyheart.

But let’s look at the prices TLC was charging, anyway.

One New Zealander spent more than $683,000 in pursuit of his heart’s desire: a woman who would marry him. When he arrived in Australia for the wedding — for the wedding, mind you — the woman, going by the name “Angie,” called to say she was flying to America. (The p.s. to this sorry tale is: the guy, a widower, who had lost his wife to cancer, ended up selling his home, his car, some shares, and his retirement in order to cover the cost of finding love again. I could do just as terrible of a job for easily half that price. Email me for details.)

Another man with “mild intellectual disabilities” (but what man doesn’t, amiright? Who’s with me ladies? Don’t you just love chocolate?) ran up $11,200 in pursuit of his perfect match. When he wasn’t able to pay TLC for their “services,” they threatened to send debt collectors in pursuit of their alleged losses.

And the poor sap who parted with $16,600 was the one who was given the sage advice of not putting any price on love.

TLC was headed by at least three people: Hollie Veall (managing director and, allegedly, the voice behind the above-mentioned Angie), Zivko Dimitrijevski (sole Director and shareholder of TLC), and Dimitrijevski’s wife, Helen, who was listed as manager of the operation.

TLC had been formally shut down by the Australian government in 2003 for a similar roster of complaints: encouraging lonely men to part with large sums of cash in order to apparently never meet up with the women they had fallen in love with. TLC was back in the news in 2009 after it was discovered that Helen Dimitrijevski was back to her old tricks.

Now, in 2011, Justice Terrence Budden has found that, from 2003 to 2009 — when TLC was supposed to be dormant, if not completely out of the running — the company continued to scam men and threaten them with collections and legal proceedings. The court is now super serious about ending this venture once and for all.

Veall and the Dimitrijevskis are already bankrupt from earlier judgments against them. However, it’s possible further judgments will be levied when the case makes its way back to court later this year.