‘Like being in a vortex’: US report details extent of ‘devastating’ dating-app scams
Congress calls for Match Group and others to do more to help victims like Mary, who lost $100,000 to app scammer Mary met a man on the dating app Plenty of Fish in 2024. She told the Guardian she had been looking for a connection, but instead became the victim of a romance scam that cost her almost $100,000. “There was a lot of conversation, and then it started with the constant contact, pressure and repeated asks…
Key points
- A Senate investigation found nearly 1.5m scam accounts on Tinder and Hinge matched with users in the US.
- Mary, a Plenty of Fish user, said she lost about $100,000 in cryptocurrency to a romance scammer.
- Senator Hassan said Match Group made progress but "there's still more that Match needs to do".
A US congressional investigation has detailed the scale of romance scams on dating apps owned by Match Group, including Tinder, Hinge and Plenty of Fish. The report, published Tuesday, followed an inquiry launched last September by Senators Maggie Hassan, a New Hampshire Democrat, and Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican.
One victim, identified only as Mary, told the Guardian she met a man on Plenty of Fish in 2024 and sent him about $100,000 in cryptocurrency payments. She said he contacted her constantly, knew where she lived and asked for money for work-related things and medical emergencies.
What the report found
Internal Match Group documents showed that as of the second half of 2025, Tinder had not updated most of its machine learning models in years, according to the report. As a result, the report said, Tinder detected scammers less reliably and struggled to keep pace with emerging threats.
Match Group data showed that through the third quarter of 2025 in the US, nearly 1.5m scammers or other bad actors on Tinder and Hinge had matched with at least one other user. Nearly 500,000 of those accounts exchanged contact information with another user, the report said.
It is encouraging that following committee outreach, Match Group introduced new AI models
— the report
Company and senator respond
The report noted that since the investigation began, Match Group introduced measures including facial verification on Tinder across the US and a new AI model to detect scammers. It said those changes came after a prolonged period in which scams continued to proliferate on Tinder.
Yoel Roth, Match Group's senior vice-president of trust and safety, said the committee recognized the company's advancements, but that the report mischaracterizes its investment and completed work. Hassan said Match Group made progress but that it shouldn't have taken so long, and that more remains to be done.
