Home / Crime and Justice / Victim Loses $100K as Congress Demands Dating App Action
Victim Loses $100K as Congress Demands Dating App Action
14 Oct
Summary
- Congress investigated romance scams on dating platforms after a victim lost $100,000.
- Match Group's apps like Tinder showed outdated scam detection models until recently.
- Lawmakers urge dating apps to proactively combat AI-supercharged fraud.
A victim, identified as Mary, lost approximately $100,000 to a romance scam initiated on Plenty of Fish in 2024, an event that has spurred a US Congress investigation. Senators Maggie Hassan and Marsha Blackburn are examining romance scams across dating platforms owned by Match Group, including Tinder, Hinge, and Match. This investigation highlighted that, as of the second half of 2025, Tinder's machine learning models for detecting scammers had not been updated in years, leading to less reliable threat identification.
During the third quarter of 2025 in the US, nearly 1.5 million potential scammers or bad actors on Tinder and Hinge matched with other users, with around 500,000 exchanging contact information. Following this scrutiny, Match Group has implemented measures such as facial verification on Tinder and a new AI model to detect harmful accounts. However, committee Democrats noted that these improvements occurred after a significant period where scams were prevalent on their platforms.
Match Group, through its senior vice-president of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, stated gratitude for the committee's recognition of their advancements while asserting that the report mischaracterizes their investment and existing work. Roth emphasized that significant safety enhancements, including face verification, were already in progress. Senator Hassan is also co-sponsoring legislation to create a central portal for reporting scams and seeking law enforcement assistance, stressing the urgent need for dating apps and all companies to update their defenses against AI-enhanced fraud.
