Flag and Report the Scammer on Hinge or Other Platforms — 8 Safety Tips for Online Dating
Almost one year after my experience being scammed on Hinge and WhatsApp through a fake Cryptocurrency trading platform, I have started to see more and more fake scammer profiles on all the major dating platforms. I only use Facebook dating, Hinge and Tantan, but I am seeing so many of them that I need to make this post so that you can learn the key to identify a potential scammer’s profile and report them immediately to protect other fellow users.
If your dating platform does not have a report function, get off and use a different one. Your data security and safety is top priority.
Romantic scams are now a global crime worldwide, especially worsened since the Covid-19 pandemic and rise of cryptocurrency.
TLDR: Scams are run by global syndicates that kidnap or traffic English speaking people in third world countries to dupe women and men of all ages in developed countries. Their modus operandi is to create a standard script of a fantasy character (successful professional who is super attractive — with pictures stolen from public social media accounts), had a history of being cheated on or betrayed by his friends or exes, and he is now financially successful from investing in crypto or forex or some platform, now they are looking for true love. This person will spend hours and even months investing in you, buying you gifts, having an entire remote or virtual relationship, teaching you how to invest on their “platform” with your own money, once you fall deeper, you will send your money to a platform that has no withdrawal function. Most of these syndicates are based in China, they have the scale and manpower working in call centers over 24 hour shift to tend to these “customers,” so their English is not fluent. They also tend to use Asian profiles, but I am noticing more diversity in the fake profiles that they are creating, so race is not a clear red flag but if you see too hot an Asian dude or chick, most likely a scam profile.
Here are two profiles that I flagged and reported. I will highlight what is so suspicious about them so you can learn and teach your fellow online dating friends.
Yun Kai’s profile has these few huge red flags:
- Look at the first prompt: I get along best with people who…, instead of describing a person, he made a random statement about milk and coffee in very awkward English. So, clearly the user did not have full fluency of English.
- His job was listed as “free lance in Boston” — also a grammatically awkward word that is not common.
- “Believe it or not, I worked with my friends for ten years.” This is actually a common thing for people to befriend their coworkers for ten years. This is actually the same script from my scammer who said that his friend of ten years frauded him financially after working together for ten years.
- “Together we could…We are together, but we need to know each other and talk about other things. We can’t eat hot tofu in a hurry.” This is again, another really awkward prompt reply when we are not answering the question of what you would do with a romantic partner. And “We can’t eat hot tofu in a hurry” is literally a word-for-word translation of a Chinese idiom that means we need to be patient for the good things in life to unfold. In tofu making, the soybeans take time to curdle properly into tofu, and the chef has to heat up a curdled and prepared tofu to make it warm. Basically, a timely cooking process and you can’t eat hot tofu when you’re rushing things like trying to fall in love with a scammer who doesn’t speak English.
- If you just look at the images they use, they are most likely stolen from influencer or just attractive men on social media, the pictures will not clearly relate or show their actual location in the city or a landmark that you can identify. If you take time to reverse image search, you will find the actual influencer or account where the pictures were taken. Or just another rabbit hole of more fake social media profiles. Trust your gut, if the person looks too attractive or photoshopped to be a real man in your city, swipe left or report him.
Finally, this is a new profile featuring an American White brother, how interesting! Let’s see how many suspicious things you flag?
- Firstly, Jac uses “they” pronouns, how liberal and progressive! But he did not answer the question of the biggest risk “they” took in life. They just used a cute selfie.
- His life goal is to “retire before the age of 50, realize wealth freedom and travel around the world with your lover. globe globe globe emoticons.” How cute! That’s is another textbook example of a google translation fail. Realizing wealth freedom? They meant achieving financial freedom. And travel around the world with “your lover”, who are they talking to? Whose lover are they trying to seduce here? Is Jac just so progressive and liberal that they want my lover, me as in a user looking at their profile?
- In the gender section, you get to write in your own gender. Jac uses “they” pronouns but his gender is “I am a romantic person.”
- The last two screenshots have no blatant grammar issues but when you read his last comment, why would you put a sick emoticon when they are looking for a serious relationship?
Finally, I don’t know which white bro’s profile pictures got stolen here, I hope he realizes that some scammer is using his cute selfies and dog pictures to scam women on Hinge.
Which brings me to another data security point, should we all install anti-hacking privacy features on all our own public profiles so that nobody can steal our images and create fake profiles with our images?
What can we do on social media to establish a clear and professional identity that cannot be faked? When your account is stolen and you are aware of it, how do you report it and do damage control? Is the solution to not even have a social and public persona? With so many of us starting our own practice, business, community and circles, we cannot let these scammer criminals limit our freedom of speech, freedom to live in safety and open connection.
I wrote this to inspire more conversation about navigating social media and online dating safely. Here are some tips I saw from TanTan, a dating app made by Chinese developers and supported by the Chinese government. They regularly take down scammer profiles and would send a notification to all users who have matched and conversed with the fake profile. However, they did not clearly identify the scammer, they just said “one of the users in your conversation” was reported and now being investigated, watch your own back.
But they did put in some really smart automated anti-scam features whenever phrases like “sex, rape, hook up, whatsapp, another platform, wechat, line” were mentioned, a friendly reminder pops up to say,
“To protect your own safety, please stay on TanTan app until you have met this person with a video call or in person before shifting to another platform. Never give your personal information such as home address, work address, birthday or financial information to a stranger that you have not met. We do not vouch for the background of any user here. blah blah blah” or
“Is this user harassing your or selling sexual services? Click this button to report them.”
And with Hinge and Facebook dating, on average, every day, I am flagging 1–2 fake profiles just from the people who matched with me or showed interest in me. There has been no communication on next steps and no clear sign that the scammer in question have been dealt with. I think all dating platforms really need to take this scam situation seriously and create better algorithm for flagging and taking down fake profiles, verifying the GPS location of the users (even identifying VPN users from abroad). It is truly concerning when I have met and known many scam victims who are intelligent, kind and trusting. Online dating is stressful and exhausting as it is without the fear and hassle of dealing with scammers.
And honestly, as a Chinese person, knowing that my fellow Chinese are propagating such a horrible crime that violates human trust and kindness, worsening existing racist and cultural biases is also disheartening. Let’s do our part to educate each other on online safety and squash out this horrible crime!
I do acknowledge that Hinge has the best reporting button. See below. I do wish that they have done more to educate users on staying safe.
In summary, how do you stay safe navigating online dating?
- Be mindful of your online presence, be selective in how many selfies you post and if your attractive pictures were stolen and used by a scammer, what would you do to clear your own name?
- Ask the person specific questions like their favorite hangouts, restaurants or grocery store, or even weather questions to confirm that they are in the same city.
- Be skeptical about intense life stories and watch out for weird language challenges. To work professionally as an immigrant, having broken English is not really possible in most major cities. If they ask to speak in Chinese or other languages, question them why before agreeing. I hate to say this, but really test their basic English skills and local slang words like “T-pass, MBTA, subway, the T, Uber, Lyft.”
- If any part of their profile mentions investments, financial freedom, while it might legitimately be their field of work, be extra careful of their investment advice if it involves you moving your money somewhere else.
- NEVER move to another chatting platform before a video call confirming that they are who they claim to be. Once they have your number, it is sent out to a thousand other scammers and telemarketers, your telegram or WhatsApp will be spammed regularly by random strangers. DO NOT repeat my mistake here.
- If they are real and they like you, they can’t wait to meet you in person and touch you in the flesh. If they are not asking to meet after 2 days, they are FAKE and for your own mental health, ask for a video or phone call, if they make excuses, you are done, just block and report them.
- Of course, some scams and heartbreaks are much harder to identify in the short run, everyone’s integrity and character can only be truly known in good and hard times. Take your time to really get to know a person before investing your time, money or feelings into this stranger.
- Safety rules for women and men: A great reddit thread really covered it. I will share it here. Everyone needs to read it. I think it will give men a lot of perspectives on their own privilege and risks that women go through to date and meet you.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskWomen/comments/849wp2/how_do_you_stay_safe_when_online_dating/
Despite it all, online dating and making new friends are worth the risks. Life is an adventure, let’s buckle up, educate each other about safety tips and share this incredible ride ^_^
