SINGAPORE: A local Reddit user took to the platform to crowdsource information on the most common scams on dating apps in Singapore, having recently matched with a man who seemed rather sketchy.
In their post on r/askSingapore on Monday (June 23), u/Beginning_Medium3551 wrote that they were asking the question “out of curiosity,” explaining that they’re not new to dating apps and have experienced a number of “scammy experiences, including one that was close to money laundering”.
Lately, however, they matched with a man who said his monthly salary was S$40,000, bought his own condo studio, and drives a Porsche. The man also talked often about “this carbon trading thing”.
“Not sure if this is an impending scam or it’s another too-good-to-be-true,” the post author added, asking other Reddit users to weigh in on the most common scams on Bumble, Tinder, Hinge, and other dating apps.
In the most upvoted comment, a man noted that a couple of dating apps, namely Bumble and Coffee Meets Bagel, now have Singpass verification.
However, he added that Bumble’s white tick verification process, which uses photos, may have become compromised, based on a recent experience.
After he matched with a woman and exchanged pleasantries with her, she asked for his WhatsApp number. However, a few minutes after he gave it, they were unmatched.
While she never messaged him, he wrote, “Next day, I got a cold call survey on my number. LOL, wondering if they were collecting and selling databases.”
Another time, when he matched with a woman with a verified white tick on Bumble, she again asked for his WhatsApp number.
“This time I just casually deflected to Telegram instead, but ‘she’ insisted on asking me to download WA. LOL. I left ‘her’ at read,” he added.
Another commenter wrote that they encountered two scams, one where the person they matched with asked them to invest in a cryptocurrency, and another where they were asked to open an online store. Fortunately, they did not fall for either of the ruses, but uninstalled the app afterwards.
A commenter wrote, “A dating app scam I heard about from Indian friends in Singapore involved the OKC app. A woman matched with a man, chatted, and dated for a few months. She met his ‘family’ once at a hawker centre for dinner. Later, he abruptly ghosted her.
“When she and mutual friends investigated, they discovered his identity was fake, and the ‘family’ were random people from Malaysia posing as his relatives. Heartbroken, she had developed genuine feelings for him. His true identity remains unknown, and this occurred over a short period in 2019.”
“I matched with a girl on Bumble (she was verified, so it’s not reliable) who asked me to text on Telegram and then instantly asked for my Instagram, and then she wanted to “have some fun” and was asking me to video call. The scam is that they’ll record/screenshot you on the call and then threaten to send it to your followers on IG and ask you for money. I knew it was a scam to begin with, so I stalled the scammer for a couple of days, then blocked them. Beware, guys!” wrote another. /TISG
Read also: Majority of dating app users in Singapore seek serious relationships but only 1% are satisfied