Tinder is facing serious questions about whether its failure to maintain effective security safeguards allowed scammers to target people searching for love. A new congressional investigation reveals that the dating app relied on outdated fraud detection technology for years while suspicious accounts continued reaching unsuspecting users.
The findings, released October 13, 2026, raise concerns about Tinder romance scams and whether parent company Match Group did enough to prevent fraudulent profiles from entering its platforms before users suffered financial and emotional harm.
According to the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee’s investigative report, most of Tinder’s artificial intelligence models responsible for identifying scammers had not been updated in years as of late 2025. Internal company records indicated that outdated detection systems struggled to identify evolving fraud tactics, while other automated safeguards frequently proved ineffective.
The consequences extended directly to users. Match Group’s own data showed that between May 2024 and December 2025, the median number of views received by a scammer’s Tinder profile increased by more than 700%.
In May 2024, a typical scammer profile received fewer than 70 views before being banned. By December 2025, that figure exceeded 500. Investigators also found that Tinder displayed profiles associated with scammers and other bad actors at higher rates than legitimate accounts.
That raises a troubling concern: Tinder’s recommendation system was potentially giving fraudulent profiles greater visibility while its security measures failed to identify them quickly enough.
For victims, those failures carried devastating consequences.
The Senate investigation documented the experience of a woman who joined Tinder in 2025 after losing her husband. Hoping to find companionship, she connected with someone claiming to live in New Jersey.
According to her testimony, the man gradually gained her trust before inventing emergencies involving an oil rig, legal problems in Mexico, and a supposed heart attack. Each crisis became another reason to request money.
After the initial deception, another group approached her promising to recover her stolen funds. Instead, they allegedly used a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme to take even more.
The woman reported losing more than $700,000 altogether. She also described psychological trauma, shame, and difficulty trusting others after the experience.
Her story illustrates why Tinder romance scams cannot be measured solely by financial losses. Victims can face lasting emotional consequences after discovering that someone they believed cared about them was deliberately manipulating their feelings.
The investigation uncovered similar experiences across Match Group’s other dating services.
One woman using Plenty of Fish reported losing nearly $100,000 in cryptocurrency payments during a two-month period. Even after discovering the deception and blocking the individual, she said he continued contacting her through different numbers and email addresses.
She later discovered additional profiles displaying the same photographs and reported them to the platform, but said she received no response.
The scale of suspicious activity documented by investigators makes these experiences especially concerning.
During the first nine months of 2025, nearly 1.5 million accounts classified as scammers or other bad actors on Tinder and Hinge matched with at least one person in the United States. Almost 500,000 exchanged contact information with another user.
Those figures do not establish that every suspicious account successfully defrauded someone. However, they demonstrate how extensively potentially harmful profiles were able to establish contact despite existing security measures.
The financial threat extends beyond Match Group. According to data cited by the Senate committee from the Federal Trade Commission, Americans reported nearly $1.5 billion in romance scam losses during 2025.
The FTC’s research on online scams also shows how criminals exploit emotional connections, fabricated emergencies, and fraudulent investment opportunities to obtain money.
Following congressional scrutiny, Match Group implemented additional protections, including Tinder’s mandatory Face Check verification for new U.S. users in December 2025.
The company told investigators that the technology reduced interactions with spam accounts, bots, and scammers by more than 70%.
However, the Senate report questioned how effectively that improvement measured protection against actual romance scammers. Match Group combined scammers with other suspicious account categories when providing those results, preventing investigators from independently assessing the technology’s effectiveness against romance fraud specifically.
Investigators also identified concerns about methods used to bypass facial verification.
Match Group introduced additional artificial intelligence detection technology in 2026 and expanded automated screening rules. The improvements acknowledged by investigators also intensified questions about why stronger safeguards were not implemented sooner.
Responding to the findings, Match Group’s senior vice president of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, disputed the investigation’s characterization of the company’s efforts.
“The report mischaracterizes both the historical scale of our investment and the work already completed.”
Roth also defended the company’s recent investments in a statement reported by the Boston Globe.
“Alongside our engagement with the Committee over the past year, we’ve made the largest safety advancements in Match Group’s history. Trust and Safety is a foundational priority, and we intend to continue leading the industry in building tools that promote authentic, safe connections,” Roth said.
Senator Maggie Hassan, who led the investigation alongside Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn, acknowledged those improvements while criticizing the delays.
“During the course of our investigation, Match Group made progress in combating scammers — but it shouldn’t have taken so long, and there’s still more that Match needs to do.”
The findings leave a central question about accountability. When dating platforms control who users encounter, how quickly dangerous profiles are identified, and when suspected scammers are removed, protecting people from financial exploitation cannot depend on reacting only after significant harm has occurred.
