For people looking for love online, meeting a scammer could cost them their life savings.
A congressional investigation, which began in September 2025 and lasted about a year, found that Tinder’s scam detection systems struggled for years to keep fraudulent accounts off the dating app. Parent company Match Group has since moved to address the shortcomings with new verification requirements and improved detection technology.
Romance scams have become one of the leading forms of financial fraud in the United States, costing Americans nearly $1.5 billion in reported losses last year, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
“There’s a lot of stigma around being a victim of scams,” Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., who launched the investigation alongside Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said in an interview last week. “People need to understand that very sophisticated people who are doing all the right things are still getting scammed because of the level of technology and resources that these criminal enterprises currently have.”
I fell prey because of my personality and because I was alone. And I was really ashamed of what had happened.
-Sue Nuss, who spoke to the Congressional Joint Economic Committee about her experience using Tinder in search of companionship.
Today, scammers can realistically pose as representatives of familiar organizations like the local YMCA or a bank, and the accessibility of AI tools makes it easier than ever to find family members and imitate their voices. But romance scams, Hassan said, can be especially emotionally devastating.
That was the case for Pennsylvania resident Sue Nuss, who told the Congressional Joint Economic Committee about her experience turning to Tinder in search of companionship after losing her husband. There she met a man who claimed to be from New Jersey.
Nuss told NBC News that over the course of a month and a half, he earned her trust with words that made her feel like he truly “seeed” and “understood” her.
The committee’s report, released Tuesday, says the man deceived Nuss with a series of “manufactured” crises: job problems on an oil rig, an arrest in Mexico, his mother’s stroke and even his funeral – all excuses to demand money from Nuss, 77. When the scammers behind the profile tried to make her believe that the man she was dating was dead, she said, she realized it was all a scam.
“I’ve always been a very giving person my whole life and I’ve always been a caregiver,” Nuss told NBC News last week. “And I became prey. I was very vulnerable. I became prey because of my personality and because I was alone. And I was very ashamed of what happened.”
Days after what she thought was a budding online relationship collapsed, Nuss’s scammer reappeared on Tinder with the same profile, she said in an interview.
Soon another group approached her, claiming they could get back what she had lost. Then, through an elaborate cryptocurrency scheme, this group managed to extract even more money from Nuss. She believes the two groups of scammers were linked, the report states. He adds that in total, she lost more than $700,000.
“I’m struggling. Some days are really bad and some days are good. I’m getting therapy. I’m starting a very special therapy next week called EMDR because it’s trauma,” Nuss said. “I don’t trust my decisions anymore.”
Last month, Congress passed the Romance Scam Prevention Act, which would require online dating service providers to notify and warn all users who receive messages from potential scammers. The bill awaits President Donald Trump’s signature.
This summer, Hassan also introduced a bill with Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., to create a central reporting portal for scam victims, an initiative she said could give the federal government the tools needed to detect scam schemes and stop them more effectively.
Fraudsters stole more than $1 trillion worldwide in one year, according to a 2024 report from the Global Anti-Scam Alliance.
“Fraudulent businesses now cost the global economy more than the illicit drug trade,” Hassan said. “It’s really important for individuals. It’s really important for our economy. And so the more people who speak out about the need to change the way the federal government handles scams, the sooner that will happen.”
The Joint Economic Committee investigation aimed to tackle the prevalence of romance scams on platforms owned by Match Group, the world’s largest online dating company, with a portfolio including Tinder, Hinge, Match and Plenty of Fish.
It found that during the third quarter of 2025, nearly 1.5 million scammers or other bad actors on Tinder and Hinge were matched with someone. Nearly 500,000 of these accounts then exchanged their contact details with other users.
Internal documents shared voluntarily with the committee indicated that most of Tinder’s machine learning detection scam models had not been updated in years, and Match Group staffers found that scammers could quickly circumvent the company’s disparate detection rules. Excessive false positives also overwhelmed human moderators trying to detect dangerous accounts.
The committee wrote that it welcomed the changes made by Match Group to address these concerns.
Match Group deployed new detection models throughout the second half of 2025 and the first half of 2026 to better detect bad actors, according to the committee’s report. This year, it introduced 169 automated rules and “enhanced” another 108 aimed at targeting and eliminating inauthentic actors.
One of its main rollouts is mandatory biometric facial verification for all new users on Tinder and Hinge, intended to prevent users from creating multiple accounts and ensure that banned users cannot create new accounts.
Yoel Roth, Match Group’s senior vice president of trust and safety, told NBC News the company was “grateful that the Committee recognized our significant progress in protecting our users from romance scams.”
“That said, the report misrepresents both the historic scale of our investment and the work already accomplished. Along with our engagement with the Committee over the past year, we have made the greatest progress on safety in Match Group’s history,” Roth wrote in a statement. “Trust and security are a fundamental priority, and we intend to continue to lead the industry in creating tools that promote authentic and safe connections. »
Much of this security work, including facial checks, was already underway before the committee’s investigation, according to Match Group. It reports seeing an approximately 60% reduction in exposure to bad actors in each market since facial checks began.
Hassan also said these measures have “already managed to significantly reduce the number of matches their customers have with a scammer.”
“However, they need to do more because there are still gaps in their systems,” she added. “And they will need to remain vigilant in new ways, as criminals are also constantly changing their technology and tactics. »
Gn bussni
