Does anyone actually respond to requests or are these fake profiles?
They are not fake profiles. Your experience is common. There is much advice on the General board if you go digging.
I have never gotten any response on this site from pros or non-pros.
I think there are a lot less women (pros excluded) on here than men. I get inundated with messages sometimes, and I can say that the ones I haven't responded to are the people who just say, "hi" and leave it at that or the ones that are asking right off the bat if I want to schedule something to meet up with them. As a woman, I don't operate that way for safety purposes, but I also find that pretty presumptuous that they think I would just agree to cuddle with them without even getting to know them or seeing a picture of them as if I have no standards.
@snoko the ratio of men to women overall goes from about 4:1 to 7:1 in some areas. Consequently most women are inundated with messages as you are, and most of those messages are, as you say, entirely worthless. Ignore them, it just takes too much energy to do anything else. Block if they become annoying, and Report if they cross the line - the site is usually pretty good at dealing with such cases.