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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.

Fourplay, a new dating app that lets friends create joint profiles and go on group dates with their matches, has become a hit in the New York dating scene. The app now boasts a waiting list of 9,000 people.

According to The New York Post, the app was created by two friends who were healthcare workers and didn’t have much time to devote to their jobs, friends, and the dating scene, so Danielle Dietzek and Julie Griggs decided to create a profile together on a dating app and look for matches who were willing to recruit their friends and go out all together on a double date. (Hint: they got a lot of positive responses which led to the idea for the app.)

The way Fourplay works is two friends set up a joint profile and then match with other pairs of daters. When there is a match, the four proceed to a group chat. The idea is to take the pressure and awkward conversation off of first dates, which can often be more stressful than fun, to make it a more engaging, communal experience. If there’s no romantic connection, then at least everyone got to spend time with friends, and maybe make new ones.

The Right Stuff, a new dating app to help conservatives connect more easily, is set to launch this summer. Peter Thiel, a billionaire tech entrepreneur who founded PayPal, has already signed on as an investor, according to Axios.

Thiel has invested $1.5 million in the new app, whose target market are conservative daters who live in large cities that tend to be more liberal. The app will debut in Washington D.C. and at first will be invitation-only. It will be free to download and use, with paid and subscription options added later for those who want access to more features.

John McEntee, a former political aide for the Trump administration, founded the dating app to help conservative singles find like-minded partners. “Conservatives deserve an easy way to connect,” McEntee said to Axios.

In February, the FBI issued an alert about the increase in online dating scams, noting that dating app users were cheated out of about $1 billion in 2021 alone. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said reports of romance-led scams increased 80 percent during the same time. 

The FBI also received more than 25,000 reports of dating app-related fraud in 2021, according to USA Today.

The Netflix documentary about the Tinder Swindler has brought attention to the intricate methods that scammers use to romance people and lure them to give money or share sensitive information like a passport or banking information. In the case of the Swindler, he used money from other victims to fund his lavish lifestyle and move on to his next target. (Hint: if someone who wants to fly you on a private jet also asks you for $25,000, you should be suspicious!) 

Image: Tinder

Dating app Tinder is rolling out another interactive feature for its Explore section. According to the company’s blog post, Fast Chat: Blind Date will allow users to chat without being able to see each other’s photos, so they focus on personality instead of image. 

When users opt in to the Blind Date feature, they are asked to complete a series of questions, and are paired with others based on similar responses. The questions are meant to spark conversation in an ice-breaker style, like “I put ketchup on___.” The two daters then start a timed chat in which they receive the responses as prompts, so they can have a little fun with awkward first conversations. 

When the chat time ends, they can like the other person’s profile and if they both match they can see each other’s photos and continue talking or messaging, according to the company's blog. 

Popular gay dating app Grindr has disappeared from China’s app stores, including the Apple Store, as government officials tighten control over online behavior. 

Chinese officials said there were compliance issues with Grindr regarding China’s Personal Information Protection Law, according to Bloomberg. The law requires that data stored in applications that is transferred to other locations be approved by government officials, and it limits the amount of personal data stored in apps.

In addition, China’s Internet authority began a month-long campaign to identify and eliminate any illegal and sensitive online content, according to the Bangkok Post. This move comes at an interesting time, coinciding with the celebration of the Beijing Olympic Games and the Lunar New Year.