Match Group Rolling Out Scam Prevention Campaign in Wake of Growing Problem

Image: Tinder

Romance scams have risen sharply in the last two years, so dating company Match Group is launching an awareness campaign across many of its apps to address the issue.

The company announced that its campaign will introduce in-app messages and email notifications, offering users tips on how to protect themselves from online scammers according to Tech Crunch. Tinder and Meetic will offer the tips via in-app messages, outlining behavior that could be red flags. When users come across someone that might be a scammer, the app will offer suggestions like making sure their profile photo is verified or video chatting with them before making plans to meet in person.

Match, Hinge and Plenty of Fish will send message notifications with the same tips but will send emails to users as well.

Tech Crunch points out that scammers often want to move off a dating app and message through a third-party platform that doesn’t have as much oversight. In response to this, Match Group launched a new feature that sends users on its apps pop-up safety tips if certain words are detected in a conversation.

Tinder Popup Safety Tips

Image: Tinder

Match Group has also recently added features to improve safety concerns, like Face Verification, which uses AI to check selfies against posted profile photos to ensure they are the same person.

Romance scams have skyrocketed in the last few years, thanks to the growing use of apps during the pandemic. In 2021 alone, the FTC reported that dating app consumers lost $547 million in scams, and the Global Anti-Scam Organization showed the average reported amount stolen in the U.S. was $186,169 in 2022, up from $120,754 just the year before.

Buddy Loomis, senior director of Law Enforcement Operations and Investigations at Match Group told TechCrunch: “Scammers will often play the long game. They want to really capture the victim’s confidence and trust, and they’ll spend a lot of time with them talking back and forth…that’s how scammers build a relationship with that person and make them feel safe.”

One of the biggest hurdles dating apps face is encouraging people to report scammers, or when they have been victims of scams. Many dating app users are lured into romance scams, and then are too embarrassed to report that they’ve been a victim of a crime.

“One of the big messages here is to raise awareness around this type of scam and remove that stigma of reporting. We want members to feel safe and have more come in whether that’s proactive where they haven’t been victimized and had any loss of monetary value, or after,” Loomis told Tech Crunch.