Dating app scams: common patterns, reported figures, what to do

How dating app scams work

The FBI's definition of the Confidence/Romance crime type describes the whole shape: a person believes they are in a relationship and is tricked into sending money, information or items. The first contact can be a match on a dating app, a message on a social platform or a stranger's request to connect. The steps after it repeat, and the four patterns below are editorial description, with no counts attached.

Fake profiles

A fake profile exists to start a conversation. The photos belong to someone else, the biography is short or oddly polished, and the person's situation (working abroad, away on business, between countries) explains why a meeting is always a few months off. Some accounts are run by people following a script and some are automated spam. Bumble and Badoo each name a Deception Detector aimed at scam and fake accounts, which the safety page covers with the other in-app tools.

Moving to another channel

The first request is often to leave the app for text messages, a messaging service or email, with a reason that sounds like convenience. The move has one effect that matters. In-app protections stop applying: Match runs Safe Message Filters, Plenty of Fish describes the same feature, and Pure shows in-chat scam alerts on trigger words. None of that sees a conversation held somewhere else, and a report button is no longer one tap away.

Requests for money

The story changes and the request stays. A plane ticket, a medical bill, a customs fee, a frozen account, an investment the new partner swears by. It usually comes after enough conversation to feel like a relationship. The IC3 wording is "money, information or items", so the ask can also be bank details, copies of identity documents or a parcel to forward for someone else. Gift cards, wire transfers and crypto come up often because they are hard to reverse.

Sextortion

Sextortion is blackmail over private images or messages. A person gets someone to share intimate pictures or to appear on camera, then threatens to send them to friends, family or an employer unless paid. On apps used for casual meetups the early sign is speed: explicit pictures requested within the first few messages, or a video call proposed on another service. The published romance figures are not sextortion counts.

Dating app scams in the published figures

The figures come from four countries, and the sources count different things in different periods.

United States

The IC3 2025 Internet Crime Report lists 23,159 Confidence/Romance complaints and 929,287,469 US dollars in reported losses for the 2025 calendar year. The report's three-year table gives 17,910 complaints and 672,009,052 US dollars for 2024, and 17,823 complaints and 652,544,805 US dollars for 2023. The crime type includes grandparent schemes. The same report counts 1,008,597 complaints and 20.877 billion US dollars in losses across all crime types in 2025. Complainants aged 60 and over filed 10,188 of the Confidence/Romance complaints and reported 584,032,745 US dollars in losses, a subset of the totals. The report also notes over 19 million US dollars of Confidence/Romance losses with a likely AI nexus.

The Federal Trade Commission's Data Spotlight of April 27, 2026 draws on Consumer Sentinel Network reports. It gives 298 million US dollars reported lost in 2025 to romance scams that began on social media, and says nearly 60% of people who reported losing money to a romance scam named a social media platform as the start. Reports with no contact method, or classed as other, are left out of that figure. The pages checked do not give the FTC's total romance scam loss for 2025, and they do not say how dating apps are classed within social media.

Canada

The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre's Fraud Prevention Month 2026 page lists 1,093 reports, 933 victims and a loss of 63.3 million dollars in the Relationship (romance) category for 2025. The page text labels no currency and gives no 2024 comparison.

Australia

The National Anti-Scam Centre's Targeting Scams report 2025, published in March 2026, puts combined romance scam losses at 139.9 million Australian dollars for 2025, down from 156.8 million Australian dollars in 2024. The combined figure draws on Scamwatch, ReportCyber, IDCARE, AFCX and ASIC data and ranks romance third among loss categories. Total combined losses across all scam types were about 2.18 billion Australian dollars, up 7.8%. A separate figure counts Scamwatch reports alone: more than 28.6 million Australian dollars for January to December 2025, up 21.8%. The two datasets differ in size and moved in opposite directions.

United Kingdom

Report Fraud, the service formerly called Action Fraud and run by the City of London Police, recorded 10,784 romance fraud reports in 2025, with losses of more than 102 million pounds and reports up 29% on 2024. An earlier police release of June 2025 covers the 2024-25 financial year: 9,449 reports to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, losses of over 106 million pounds, an average loss of 11,222 pounds per victim, and reports up 9%. A calendar year and a financial year are different windows, so the two rows are not a year-on-year comparison.

Reading the rows together

The units differ. IC3 counts complaints, the FTC, Canadian, Australian and UK bodies count reports, and each attaches the loss that people stated. The categories differ too: Confidence/Romance in the US, social media romance scams at the FTC, Relationship in Canada, romance in Australia and the UK. Currencies and periods differ, so adding the rows together produces a number that measures nothing. Direction is mixed: IC3 and Report Fraud show rising counts, while the Australian combined loss fell.

All of it is what people reported. A scam that nobody filed appears in no row, and none of the rows says how much money came back. None is described as a count of dating app scams.

How to check a profile

Start with the photos. A reverse image search on a profile picture shows whether the same face turns up under another name or on an unrelated site. One or two glossy photos and nothing else deserves more caution than a spread of ordinary pictures taken in different places.

Verification badges come next. Bumble gives a grey badge for Photo Verification, which may use facial recognition, and a blue badge for ID Verification. Tinder lists Photo Verification, Hinge has Selfie Verification, and Pure has an optional Photo Verification badge that takes under 30 seconds and asks for no ID. A badge records the check the app ran. It covers the photos, and the person's job, family or money troubles stay outside it. Tinder announced on October 22, 2025 that its Face Check facial verification would extend in the US, required for new users in seven countries and California with more states to follow. Where it applies today is not confirmed. Other apps are sorted in apps that check photos.

Some apps give no badge to look for. Grindr's terms say "We do not verify users", and the AdultFriendFinder pages checked describe no verification feature. On those the conversation has to do the checking.

The conversation shows the pattern. Warning signs that match the sections above: affection declared within days, a reason the person cannot meet or appear on camera, a story with a deadline, an invitation to continue on another service, a link to sign up somewhere, intimate pictures requested early. An early live video call is the cheapest test, and Bumble has voice and video calls inside the app. The video chat feature list shows which others do. A person who always finds a new reason to stay off camera is worth treating as a flag.

Checking a person before the first meeting is part of this. The meeting itself, including where to go and who to tell, is on the hookup app safety page. How the apps work from the first message on is in hookup apps step by step.

What to do after a scam

Stop sending money, including "fees" promised to release earlier payments. Contact the bank or payment provider the same day, since a transfer flagged early leaves more options than one flagged weeks later. If bank details, identity documents or logins went to the other person, tell the bank and change the passwords.

Save the evidence before blocking anyone or closing the account: the chat, the profile name and username, photos, receipts, wallet addresses and phone numbers. Take screenshots before using the steps in how to delete your account, because the chat may not be there afterward.

Report the profile in the app, so the app can review it. Then report to the agency in your country, the same bodies whose counts are above: IC3 or the FTC in the United States, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, Report Fraud in the United Kingdom, Scamwatch in Australia. The rows are made of reports like yours. A threat to share private images follows the same order: keep the messages, report them in the app and to the agency, and tell someone you trust.

Recovery is a question for the bank or payment provider. The published rows count losses as reported and say nothing about money returned. What you sent and shared in the conversation also stays with the other party, and the dating app privacy page covers what the apps themselves collect.

Questions about dating app scams