Holy Toledo! : Watch Out, Honey

Couples beware: The next time you are alone and a pretty woman bats her baby blues at you or a hunky man flexes his muscles in your direction, it could be the love police on patrol.

Test-A-Mate is a new business here that uses good-looking decoys to test a partner’s loyalty.

For $250 and a picture of your mate, the curious can browse through Test-A-Mate’s photo album of attractive women and men and select the decoy they think their companion will go for.

The customer tells Test-A-Mate where their mate hangs out and the decoy will show up and sit near him or her, but won’t speak unless spoken to, said Ron Allen, general manager of Checkmate Investigations Inc. Test-A-Mate is a Checkmate division.

In a week or two, customers receive a report card on their mates.

“We’re using Toledo as a test market,” Allen said. “We’re getting all the bugs out of the system.”

According to its brochure, “Test-A-Mate is a service that was designed to test the honesty, devotion, dedication and loyalty of your mate. ... The purpose of this service is to help solidify relationships of people that are married or single.”