Scams

Major Australian news outlet ABC is providing tips for dating app users to prevent scammers from obtaining their personal information.

A report from the Australian Competition Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) Scamwatch came out that dating app users lost $38 million to romance scammers on dating apps across the country in 2022 alone, alerting officials to a growing problem. Many dating app users have no idea how easy it is to gather information about a person from what they post in their profiles, so ABC obtained tips from security experts to help raise awareness. 

According to associate professor at Central Queensland University’s College of Information and Communication Technology Ritesh Chugh, scammers don’t need access to a lot of information. If they have a couple of pieces, such as your full name or birthdate, that could be enough for them to do some damage. And even if you aren’t posting this information to your profile, there are ways they can obtain it.

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.

Dating app Hinge announced that it will be rolling out a video verification feature to combat fake accounts and scammers, a problem for dating apps in general.

“Selfie Verification” prompts Hinge users to upload a video of themselves, and the app will confirm that the person in the video matches the photos posted to their profile. When the profile is verified, they receive a “Verified” badge. Selfie verification isn’t required, but if users want the badge they have to complete the process.

Hinge told Wired that the verification process is a combination of machine learning and human oversight that will “compare facial geometries from the video selfie to photos on the user’s profile.”

Match Group triumphed over federal regulators in a lawsuit that would have had them pay $844 million for failing to remove fake messages and profiles from its Match dating app.

According to Bloomberg, U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade delivered the ruling and cited the Communications Decency Act, deeming Match a publisher, which means that since the company isn’t creating the profiles but instead just publishing them, they are ultimately protected from blame.  

In 2019, the FTC filed a lawsuit against Match for fraud, saying that it exposed customers to increased risk of being scammed and engaged in other deceptive and unfair practices, including tricking hundreds of thousands of consumers into buying subscriptions. According to Tech Crunch, the agency claimed Match knowingly profited from these practices, and it made deceiving users a core part of its business practices. It also said that 25 to 30 percent of registrations on Match came from scammers. 

A new Connecticut bill aiming to improve safety on dating apps just advanced from the judiciary committee to the Senate for a vote. If passed, it could set a precedent for the rest of the country.

The legislation would force online dating sites to verify the identity of users and provide that information if presented with a warrant, subpoena or court order, according to CT Insider. It would also establish new education and training programs to combat online abuse and designates “grooming” (befriending minors to abuse them) as a separate crime. The judiciary committee passed the bill at the end of March.

While there is large support for the bill from legislators and violence prevention advocates, there is some hesitation among lawmakers, including Republican state senator Craig Fishbein. He questioned how dating services would be able to verify someone’s identity or stop them from transferring an account to someone else. 

A young dater joined dating app Hinge and was swindled out of $390,000 in a fraud scheme involving cryptocurrency.

According to USA Today, 24 year-old Nicole Hutchinson of Tennessee signed up for the popular dating app looking to meet someone in California, where she had planned to move. She had almost $300,000 from the sale of her late mother’s house and was looking to build a life somewhere new.

She matched with a man named “Hao” according to reports, and after he told her he was born in the same town as where she was adopted, she felt a connection and continued texting him over WhatsApp. He told her he was knowledgeable about the cryptocurrency market and wanted to “teach her” how to invest.