Tinder-Betrügereien werden immer schlimmer: Wie sie sich entwickelt haben und wie man sie vermeiden kann

Human beings have a basic need for affection and companionship, and that makes them vulnerable to online fraudsters everywhere, including Tinder. As having an active dating life becomes increasingly common, Tinder scammers proliferate. But romance scams aren't about one particular app.

While Tinder has certainly added to the problem we're discussing today, it sits at the surface of a much deeper issue. After all, romance scammers don't deal in dating apps. Their schemes rely on raw and powerful human emotions, like love.

Yes, Tinder scams are as universal as love, and that's cause for worry. We may think we're safe, but, as evidence will show, we're as vulnerable as any victim we may have heard about on the news. Sure, we may decide to remove ourselves from dating apps; but why should fear get in the way of anyone's love life?

If you think Tinder catfishers will never get you, we're here to prove otherwise. By considering the most profound aspects of romance scams and carefully reviewing the latest data, we intend to show you that Tinder scams are much, much more than just a simple online fraud…

How Tinder Scams Rose in the Post-Pandemic

Human beings have taken advantage of (and fallen for) romance scams at least since they learned how to plot, con, and manipulate. But while Tinder scams are not a new phenomenon, they are more pressing today than ever.

A Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report on romance scams points to a drastic 80% increase in the number of disclosed fraud cases between 2020 and 2021, right at the heart of the pandemic. Tinder scams were already on the rise before but, as presented in the graph, they skyrocketed post Covid:

Unfortunately, Tinder scams didn't slow down even as the COVID-19 pandemic subsided. According to a Lloyds Bank study, romance scams in the United Kingdom rose 22% between 2022 and 2023. People aged 55-64 were exceptionally affected, with the number of reported cases rising by 49% in the same period.

As we continue to hope for more up-to-date data on the matter, the dismal environment of romance scams in the United Kingdom seems to paint a vivid picture of what happens elsewhere in the world.

Tinder scams have been more conspicuous, talked-about, and noteworthy than ever in the post-pandemic landscape, but they show no signs of slowing down. Not even as Covid gradually fades out of our collective memory.

Anatomy of a Tinder Scam

A Tinder scam happens when someone believes they have made a genuine connection online, but is indeed talking to a person who's pretending to be someone else. Tinder scams take many forms, but this fake genuine connection is the common denominator bridging them all.

When scammers find this connection, they can capitalize on their victims' emotional vulnerabilities. Many times, this involves asking them for money or private photos; in others, all the scammer is looking for is experiencing what it feels like to be someone else.

Either way, falling for a Tinder scam always has a price. The victims don't necessarily have to lose money to suffer the consequences. In some cases, the emotional burden, the day-to-day sacrificing, and the disappointment of finding out your Tinder fling isn't real can weigh more heavily than spending a few thousand dollars.

The Tinder Scammer

To draw the anatomy of a Tinder scam, we need to be aware of the different lies fraudsters tell on dating apps. Romance scams are always evolving and changing shape, but they do follow certain recognizable patterns.

Once more, we should turn our attention to the FTC's comprehensive report on romance scams, which highlights the most common lies used by Tinder scammers:

The big one is "One of my family members is in trouble, can you help?", followed by:

• "I have an investment opportunity for us."
• "Can you help me with an important delivery?"
• Any sort of lie related to being in the military.

Tinder scammers also lure their victims by making their "marriage intentions" clear, stating they have found gold or money (and just need some extra cash to share it), complaining about being stranded on a ship, and asking for private photos (presumably to gain some leverage).

But regardless of the supporting lie, Tinder scammers always do their best to steal as much private data as they can from their victims. According to a ScienceDirect Hong Kong study on dating cyber-fraud, this is the personal information people most commonly lose to Tinder scammers:

Phone numbers take the lead, followed by social media information, names of schools/workplaces, full names, and detailed home addresses. Private photos and videos make up less than 9% of all stolen data.

These two charts barely begin to explore the multiple layers of deception that go into executing a Tinder scam, but they underline two important things: how scammers lie, and what type of information they need to carry on their plan.

So, we have learned a little something about how Tinder scammers act. But what do we know about their victims? What's the scope of the population affected by these crimes? And can these tricks really fool anyone?

The Victims

On one hand, we know who the victims of Tinder scams are because we have access to data about them (they just have to report a crime). On the other, knowing this doesn't allow us to outline a typical romance scam victim… As it turns out, such a thing doesn't seem to exist!

Tech support fraudsters, for example, target retirees because old people are normally not as tech-savvy as young people. But when scams exploit something as universal as the need for affection, does it make sense to discuss demographics?

For example: even though people aged 55-64 were particularly affected by romance scams between 2022 and 2023, the 18-29 age group remains the fastest-growing among victims. Age, therefore, is not a determining factor.

Tinder scammers also don't differentiate between genders, at least if we believe the data. According to Statista, men and women are almost equally affected by romance scams, as 53% of victims are male and 47% are female.

And no, this is not just about Tinder… As it happens, the FTC report shows that 40% of romance scams that cost money to people started on Facebook or Instagram, not on dating apps.

All of this is concerning because it makes it virtually impossible to identify a single group of vulnerable people and take the necessary actions to fight back against Tinder scams. We can prevent tech support fraud by (for example) reaching out to retirees and conducting awareness campaigns. Efforts to combat Tinder scams, on the other hand, would need to target people of all ages and backgrounds—anyone seeking romance, companionship, or validation.

The Financial Cost of a Tinder Scam

We cannot limit the scope of romance scams, but we can review their consequences, especially from an economic standpoint. The financial cost of Tinder scams is well-documented because it's easily quantifiable and is the kind of fact that tends to make news. After all, most of us learned about this sort of crime by reading sensationalistic headlines like "Man loses $50k to Tinder catfisher" or "Woman spends all her savings on fake Tinder romance."

When these clickbaity news articles are converted into actual empirical data, we get a glimpse of how costly Tinder scams can be. Here are some noteworthy facts:

• People lost $1.3 billion to romance scams between 2017 and 2021;
• Yearly losses to romance scams rose from $87 million in 2017 to $547 million in 2021;
• Tinder scam victims aged 18-29 lost, on average, $750;
• For catfish scams involving crypto investments, the average loss was $9,770;
• In the United Kingdom, male victims lost £5,145 and female victims lost £9,083 (on average).

The FTC report also has a word to say on the nature of the payment methods used in Tinder scams, with cryptocurrencies taking the lead (in 2021 alone, romance scams involving cryptocurrencies resulted in losses of $139 million). But there are other players involved, as seen in the chart:

Regardless of the payment method, one thing seems certain: Tinder scams are collectively and individually expensive. With annual earnings topping $1 billion, the romance scam "industry" actually makes more money than reputable institutions such as the World Health Organization (WHO).

Remarkable individual scams are as financially costly and, unfortunately, quite common. In 2024 alone, we were able to find three case studies totaling losses of over $165 million:

1. A British man from Yorkshire was arrested in May 2024 after stealing over $100k from three Tinder dates. His method involved copying the personal documents of the women without them noticing and using their private information to take loans in their name;
2. In Portland, a woman was scammed out of over $40k after falling in love with a man she matched with on Tinder;
3. In the U.K., a single woman was scammed after matching with an AI-generated army colonel on Tinder. Failing to recognize that the general's videos and photos were fake, she ended up sending him $25k on the promise that she would have a bag full of money on her front door by the next day.

But no matter how many millions are added to the romance scam bill every year, the real cost of Tinder scams is not paid monetarily. In the end, it's the mental health of the victims that is scarred the most…

Tinder Scams and Mental Health

Imagine a world without Tinder scams for a second. In this utopia, nobody ever had to deal with catfishes or identity theft, and that makes online dating much simpler. Even so, simpler doesn't always mean easier…

Online dating can harm one's mental health even if we don't take romance scams into account. As many people who have tried to find the love of their lives on Tinder know, dating apps are mentally exhausting from the start—especially in a place like India.

Dating Apps Are Overwhelming Even Without Scammers

Sex remains a taboo subject in India, and that shows in the way people in India (women in particular) struggle to connect with other people on dating apps. In 2024, a Juleo-YouGov Indian Matchmaking survey determined that two-thirds of dating app users never had an in-person meeting and that 3 out of 4 Indian women feel "overwhelmed" with their experience on dating apps.

Moreover, people in India often find endlessly swiping for matches virtually unbearable, to the point of saying they would prefer to "have a personalized AI Matchmaker helping them find profiles instead of endless searching."

India may have an especially sensitive relationship with sex, but our point is that dating is hard everywhere even when it doesn't involve scams. Add a generous amount of spineless criminal activity to the mix, and we have a recipe for mental health disaster…

"Like a Death": The Emotional Implications of Tinder Scams

From an emotional standpoint, Tinder scams are the ultimate betrayal. According to the London Psychologist Society, discovering that you've fallen for a romance fraud can be compared to the loss of a loved one, with some of the victims going as far as saying "It felt like a death."

The traumatic effects of Tinder scams also affect one's ability to trust, with "many victims reporting symptoms akin to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)." The situation gets even harder in instances where the victims are put under the line of fire, with friends and close relatives blaming them for not being able to recognize the scam earlier.

Consequently, Tinder scam victims are left alone grieving the loss of what they thought was a genuine romantic connection, distrusting everyone who ever tries to help them while experiencing PTSD-like flashbacks, depression, and anxiety. It's like the toughest breakup of your life, but with a macabre plot twist and a generous (to put it lightly) amount of self-loathing.

The mental health repercussions of Tinder scams are so serious that the ScienceDirect Hong Kong study that we've cited above concluded they're worse than suffering from a chronic disease! Comparing chronic patients and cyber-fraud victims, the investigators determined that the latter show a higher prevalence of depression (72.29%), anxiety (67.47%), and poor quality sleep (73.49%).

Sounds like a nightmare, doesn't it? But it will never happen to us, right? Well, not so fast!

Why Do We Keep Falling For Tinder Scams?

We are all vulnerable to Tinder scams because they take advantage of our most basic emotional needs. We fall for them not because we're stupid, uninformed, naive, or negligent... In the end, we do so because we're human.

At its core, this is why Tinder scams are so dangerous and, for the most part, unavoidable. This also begs the question: What is it, exactly, that makes Tinder scams so effective? And are enough people aware of their risks?

Knowing Tinder Scams is Great… But Not Enough

To grasp what makes Tinder scams so effective, we first need to understand that these crimes don't depend on any particular technical knowledge, like with the retirees who keep falling for tech support fraud.

Interestingly enough, people seem to have a relatively clear notion of how dangerous Tinder scams can be, as illustrated in a global survey on dating apps commissioned by the cybersecurity company Kaspersky.

The survey determined that 31% of people who contacted romance scammers managed to avoid an attack, with 50% spotting fake profiles, 49% refusing to send money to the scammer, and 47% identifying suspicious messages.

In the United Kingdom, a survey commissioned by UK Finance painted an even more optimistic picture. British citizens seem to be well-informed about the risks of romance scams, with 70% exchanging texts and WhatsApp messages to verify the identity of their Tinder matches. Some go even further, conducting social media searches (54%), speaking to the other person on the phone (49%), and performing a Google search (22%). Only 4% of the inquired admitted doing "nothing in particular".

The data clearly shows that we seem to know a lot about Tinder scams, and—according to Kaspersky—38% of people claimed not to use dating apps precisely because they are afraid of Tinder scams! This is great, but not hardly enough.

If mere awareness sufficed to put an end to the problem we're discussing today, Tinder scams would have disappeared circa 2022, when The Tinder Swindler became Netflix's most-watched documentary. Unfortunately, this never happened because the effectiveness of Tinder scams does not depend on how much we know about them; in fact, it's all about how our brains are wired…

Tinder Scam Psychology 101

The first psychological explanation for the effectiveness of Tinder scams is chemical, and brilliantly highlighted in a Psychology Today article on understanding romance scams. We will break it down into simple terms.

According to the late American anthropologist Helen Fisher, love can be separated into three fundamental chemical categories, each associated with a set of hormones:

1. Lust, linked to estrogen and testosterone;
2. Attraction, linked to dopamine and serotonin;
3. Attachment, linked to oxytocin.

Fisher believed that, while lust is not to blame for romance scams (even though many involve the promise of sex), attraction and attachment play central roles. Attraction releases dopamine, which makes us feel good, whereas attachment releases oxytocin, which makes us "feel bonded".

When combined, attraction and attachment can cause us to act irrationally because feel-good dopamine leads to bonding, and the feeling of bonding releases oxytocin. The more chemically attracted and bonded to someone (even if it's just a Tinder profile), the more we're prone to ignore reason and trust the other person.

The second psychological explanation for the effectiveness of Tinder scams is cognitive, and thoroughly discussed by Dr. Jessica Barker in the book Confident Cyber Security (she also speaks briefly about it in this YouTube video).

According to Barker, Tinder scammers are successful in manipulating their victims' brains because of three main reasons:

1. The sunk-cost fallacy, which causes people to want to carry on a course of action just because they are already invested in it (as in "I've been talking to this guy for six months now, so I will ignore the red flags because that would mean all this hard work would go to waste.");
2. The confirmation bias, which causes people to overvalue information that supports their pre-established beliefs (as in "I'm sure this Tinder girl I'm talking to is real. Yes, she's never free for a video call, but she sent me a photo of her legs today, so I must be right.");
3. Love-bombing, a method in which the scammer defuses any complaint or suspicion victims may have by showering them with compliments and vows of affection (as in "I know I've missed our call for the second time, but you're the most incredible person I ever talked to and I think you may even be wife material.").

By continuously feeding our brains with addictive hormones and playing into some of our most elementary cognitive biases, Tinder scammers profit from making their victims feel love-high (and therefore bad at decision-making) and blind to whatever signs of suspicion may arise. Once we're attracted and attached to someone, we don't want to see beyond our own oxytocin-induced happiness.

Is Tinder Fighting Back?

Online romance scams have existed since the dawn of the first dating website. However, the current online dating landscape has made it much easier for criminals to follow through with fraud. And the worst part is that nobody seems to be fighting back…

A "Shift in Dating Psychology"

In a 2024 Business Insider article, the S.T.O.P. executive director Albert Fox Cahn reflected on how much online dating has changed since the early days of Match.com. When Tinder came into the picture, Cahn recognized an immediate "shift in dating psychology" that turned what was once a laborious process into a gratifying one-swipe activity.

While Match.com was about creating personalized profiles and reading lengthy love messages, Tinder is a dopamine-feeding app running on split-second decisions that are seldom based on more than one or two pictures.

Simultaneously, the online dating industry abandoned the idea of "Find the love of your life" for something as clichè, but undoubtedly more dangerous: Make as much money as you can without really considering user experience!

Dating apps and websites are no longer trying to build genuine connections, and that makes sense: If you find your one true love on Tinder, there's a good chance you will uninstall Tinder, right? Yet, in their unconditional pursuit of monetization, dating services didn't do users any favors, creating an environment where scammers can thrive like never before.

In an online dating landscape where casual love stories run on fiber-optic velocity and algorithm-picked profiles are less revealing than your best poker face, spotting fake profiles trying to feed on your hope of finding real love becomes much harder.

The Fake Profile Epidemic

The Juleo-YouGov Indian Matchmaking survey reported that 78% of Indian women encountered fake profiles on dating apps like Tinder. Knowing online dating services today, it's almost hard to believe the number doesn't sit at 100%... Such is the prevalence of bot-sounding private messages and AI-looking profile pictures on these platforms.

That sure is the prevailing view on Reddit, where users constantly complain about fake profiles on Tinder. Recent changes in the app even caused some Redditors to take it one step further and accuse Tinder itself of creating fake profiles! They believe that, to lure users living in areas with few potential matches (like a small city in Brazil), Tinder has artificially injected bots into the app.

Shocking as it may be, this is merely Internet speculation. Nevertheless, we decided to learn more about how Tinder deals with fake profiles. We were disappointed, to say the least…

In their page on impersonation accounts, Tinder claims to be against fakes and includes a link to a form where users can report general safety or privacy concerns. What's missing? Everything but the bare minimum.

Tinder doesn't seem to have taken any concrete action against fake profiles on its platform and didn't even care to officially deny repeated accusations that it creates fake profiles. The bottom line? Apart from supporting anti-scam organizations, the world's most popular dating app doesn't seem to be too bothered to fight back against romance scams.

But the saddest thing is: Could the guys running Tinder put an end to the fake profile epidemic even if they were trying their best?

Fake It 'Till You Make It

Old '90s hacker movies got us believing that, to scam people online, one has to be a computer genius. Nowadays, pretending to be someone else on Tinder is probably easier than getting an actual date.

Consider this Reddit user, who created a fake Tinder profile to "feel what attractive people go through". Even though he admitted to "genuinely feel so bad", r/offmychest (quite an appropriate nickname, all things considered) also confessed that he forgot he was impersonating another man for a few days, "completely leading" and "catfishing" people into a scam.

Generative AI tools like ChatGPT have made it even easier to create fake profiles. We surely had no problem convincing ChatGPT to come up with 10 Tinder fakes that could've posed as real people on any dating platform! Take "adventurous foodie" Elena, for example:

If r/offmychest created a fake profile just to feel attractive and we came up with a bunch of them just to prove a point, what's stopping Tinder scammers who can actually profit from impersonating other people?

Despite being vocally against fake profiles, Tinder—and all other dating apps—don't seem to be leading the fight against romance scams, and that means the responsibility falls on every one of us.

Before going to war against the fake profile epidemic, though, it's crucial to learn how we can protect ourselves from the growing peril of Tinder scams.

How to Avoid Tinder Scams

• Never send money to someone you've met on Tinder;
• Don't share your personal information with a match you don't know personally;
• Deny requests to leave Tinder and proceed with communication on WhatsApp or other alternative platforms;
• Once the conversation starts flowing, ensure you have a way of knowing the other person is real (a video call, a phone call, a customized picture, etc.);
• If the other person isn't able to confirm their identity, cease communication;
• Don't take things too far without meeting the other person in real life (that's how the sunk-cost fallacy gets you);
• Look for signs of fake profiles (inconsistent photos, superficial information, AI-looking pictures, etc.);
• Family emergencies happen sometimes, but it's safer to assume coincidences do not exist.

Tinder Scams: A Life-and-Death Matter?

When Laura Kowal, from Illinois, met a charming man online by the name of Frank Borg, she thought her luck had changed. Looking for a genuine romantic connection, she quickly fell in love with the mysterious gentleman.

Frank fulfilled Laura's need for support and companionship, fueling a bond that was entirely made of online interactions. One day, he asked her to invest in his online trading firm, and Laura ended up putting her $1.5 million nest egg on the line.

Later, Laura finally managed to see beyond her own blinding emotions, recognizing that the man she'd fallen for never existed.

Not long after, she was found in the Mississippi River. While the official cause of death was "drowning", Laura's closest family members (including her surviving daughter) are convinced that she took her own life.

Laura's demise shows that romance scams are more than a million-dollar criminal operation—they're a pressing, life-and-death crisis that needs to be dealt with as soon as possible.

Tinder scams transcend fraud, reaching far out beyond our mobile screens and entering the deepest realms of our souls. They feed on our most fragile human needs and, if we don't do something about it, they may one day make us run out of air, just like they did to Laura Kowal…