The good news is the internet can be a great tool for bringing together friends and families around the world.
The bad news is this doesn't apply if your name is Kay Hammond and you are looking for Mr Right.
Birmingham-based Ms Hammond, the 24-year-old internet entrepreneur searching online for a non-geek groom, has discovered the two bids for her hand were hoaxes.
The marriage auction on QXL attracted more than 38,000 hits but 37,998 were window (or possibly Windows) shoppers. And the two bidders meeting the £250,000 reserve price, "Ben Webb" and "andrew1901", have proved to be uncontactable.
Ms Hammond is clearly just not lucky in love. Two previous auctions were abandoned after bogus bids reached £1 billion.
It is not clear how these latest developments affect the publicity deals she has signed with the Mail on Sunday and Channel 4 but Ms Hammond is clearly broken-hearted. In a statement issued through her publicists, she said: "I was very disappointed when I found out the bids were not genuine.
"I would have been happy to marry anyone who came up with the cash."
I'm waiting with baited breath for the next instalment of the mouse-driven marriage merry-go-round. Good luck Ms Hammond.
In the meantime, she can console herself with the heart-warming story of Jackie Smith, who has made contact with her two sons nine years after their father took them abroad.
Her youngest son Darius, who now lives in North Carolina in the United States, posted a message on the Missing You web site, saying he wanted to find her.
They had last seen each other outside his school gates before Easter 1993.
After Ms Smith received a tip-off about the message from anonymous internet users, she rushed to an internet cafe in Rochester, Kent, where she lives, to respond.
Within hours, 18-year-old Darius has written back: "Hello mummy. I miss you so much.
It has been a long time since I have seen you but there has not been one day that has gone by that I haven't thought about you."
Ms Smith has also contacted her eldest son Aaron, who is now 21. Amid the marketing hype surrounding modern technology, this is an example of how the internet can really do some good.
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