According to a recent study, nearly 80% of online dating profiles are set up and run by crafty, mischievous ostriches that are trying to trick normal people into giving them birdseed. The study shows that this has been going on for over four years now, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to stop it.

Many online daters across the country have spoken out about the issue after the study was released, saying they were too embarrassed to say anything before.

“I got matched with a man named Eduardo Phillips,” says frequent online dater and scarf enthusiast Hanna Borgen. “We chatted for a while and every so often he would ask me if I had any birdseed. I thought he was just being quirky and weird like every other guy who uses dating sites.”

Hanna later found out that she had been chatting with an ostrich the whole time, and that this ostrich was just using her to buy birdseed.

“He started asking if I would send him birdseed through the mail. Small packages at first, then larger ones. It got to a point where I was spending hundreds of dollars a month on birdseed and shipping, and I had no idea where it was all going.”

Hanna says that whenever she had doubts about the relationship, “Eduardo” would reassure her that he was a person just like her, and that sending him birdseed was the best way she could show her love towards him.

“I felt like I could trust him, like I could confide in him,” said Hanna. “I can see now that he was just an ostrich preying on my insecurities, but it felt so real at the time.”

Hanna isn’t alone. Nearly 400,000 Americans have reported similar experiences in the last four years. Authorities are not certain if it is a single ostrich behind all these fraud cases, or a league of ostriches working together.

The FBI has issued a warning for every online dater in the United States to be on the lookout for profiles that look suspiciously like they might have been created by ostriches.

“If someone you meet online starts asking you for birdseed, the best thing you can do is to cease communicating with them,” said an FBI spokesperson this morning. “We are doing everything we can to find the ostrich or ostriches responsible.”

Written by J. S. Wydra: @jswydra
Additional, unrelated news: @actlnews

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