25 Apr Uncovering the dark side of online dating
UK Police figures show, crimes involving online dating apps has risen, uncovering a darker side of online dating.
A woman aged 41 who met her Tinder date back in 2018 told The Metro last year “I faked my death so he would stop raping me, I had to play dead because it was the only way to make him stop. I thought that if he thought I was dead, he’d run off, which he did”.
Not all crimes linked to online dating are reported. Victims don’t always come forward, instead they stay silent for many different reasons. Due to this, the dark figure of online dating is present.
UK Police figures show, reported crimes related to online dating such as murder, rape, scams and revenge porn etc. has risen in the last 5 years. Did you know 1 in 3 people in relationships in the UK now start online. Tinder report they set up over a million dates per week. Are dating apps really safe to use if over a million dates are set up in just a week?
UK participants, 19-year-old student Gilda and 22-year-old retail worker Chloe shared their experiences of using online dating.
Gilda shared her experience of using Tinder and how she became a victim of revenge porn. “I started speaking to a guy I matched with on Tinder, he looked so fit! It was almost like he was too good to be true; he ticked all my boxes and I was so amazed as to how a stunning guy could match with me. I started speaking to him a lot literally every minute of the day we would be texting each other. I really liked him, and he became my boyfriend. He slowly started to become verbally abusive towards me about my appearance by saying ‘your ugly’ and because I started to like him so much, I would literally do anything for him to make him be happy and not leave me. One day, we had a massive argument over the phone, later on that day he told me to send him some nude pictures of myself, I wasn’t entirely comfortable on doing this as I’ve never done this before, I felt really strongly pressured by him, I wanted to keep him happy, so I sent them to him. Then he was completely fine, he told me he had plans on going out in the evening with his friends and was going to be late, so I went to sleep. In the middle of the night I get a text on my phone and my phone is constantly ringing, it was my friend she sent me an Insta message to check a post out, I was half awake but I opened it and it was a nude of me, I knew exactly who posted it on this page as my so called boyfriend only had this picture, I quickly reported it to Instagram and got my friends to report it too, the page went down within like 5 hours, which felt like forever, I tried to contact him as he posted it for basically anyone to view and tried to tell him to take it off but he wouldn’t even pick up my calls or respond back to my text messages, I didn’t even go back to sleep as I tried to contact him all night until he picked up my call and said that we’re over”.
Gilda added “I was ashamed, I didn’t want to be known as a victim of revenge porn, I didn’t see a point in reporting it”. Therefore, it can be said this type of crime due to online dating is not reported enough as victims may feel that nothing will come out of it.
Similarly, Chloe shared her experience of romance fraud “I don’t have any trust in online dating anymore and I wouldn’t advise people to use it. I was speaking to a guy that I had fallen in love with. After a long break of being single, I decided to join Tinder and finally meet the man of my dreams, it all came stumbling down after months of him lying to me about who he was, he was actually a fraudster. We spoke for months but never met because he told me he was a busy guy as he owned his own business. One day I woke up and messaged him ‘good morning’ and he didn’t reply for hours which was unusual, I started to get worried and called him numerous amount of times and it kept going to voicemail, I thought he blocked me so I called with private and his phone still kept going to voicemail. Later on, that evening, I got a call from him and he said his business is in some sort of trouble and he needs a grand, I decided to help him out by lending him money from my savings account, he gave me the account details to send it to, it wasn’t under his name but I didn’t think much of it at the time, I sent the money and text him to say I sent it. It got late so I fell asleep, I woke up the next morning and there was no reply, so I decided to call him and it went to voicemail, I later on that day got a call from my bank about money being sent to a fraudulent account, this man I loved was fake and a fraudster. He still hasn’t contacted me til this day”.
The UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime, ActionFraud say “2/3 romance frauds originated on dating sites”. Therefore, Chloe is not the only victim of romance fraud and there are other victims. It can be argued, that the statistic could be even higher if more crimes were reported by victims. These are not the only dangers of dating sites as victims can go through life threatening situations.
Newspapers have also wrote stories about victims facing dangers through online dating e.g. in March last year the Metro reported a woman faced abuse online through Tinder due to her size, ABC News wrote a story of a 29-year-old woman studying her masters in London, who had experienced a scam of $200K from a guy she met on Tinder and just once in person last year. She thought he was ‘rich’, and he would pay her back soon, after he was out of trouble. In November 2019, The Mirror, reported Essex, 22-year-old Grace Millane who was a Tinder user was strangled and killed on her first date in an apartment by a man she met on Tinder.
A website that delivers digital marketing news, analysis and research called Netimperative.com have published ‘85% of the UK’s dating app user base is male. On Tinder this figure is even higher, with roughly one female user for every nine male users’. This can interpret that due to more men using dating apps and women not being the main users, women are scared of the dangers of online dating and find it risky to use.
Dating apps such as Tinder, Grindr, eHarmony and Muzmatch have over a million users. It can be argued, the number of crimes related to online dating will continue to rise as dating apps cannot do a background check on all users as many people join dating apps every day.
As crimes are related to online dating, Tinder guides their users by saying “We take the safety, security and well-being of our users very seriously….while a relatively small percentage of these matches have led to users falling victim to criminal activity, we firmly believe any incident of misconduct or criminal behaviour is one too many. We are continuously exploring new updates, partnerships and technologies to enhance and inform our safety efforts”.
Some of the tips they have given are to never send money or share financial information, meet in public and stay in public, stay on the platform as users with bad intentions often try to move the conversations to text, messaging apps, email etc.
In regards towards safekeeping Gilda said, “I wouldn’t meet up with anyone unless I can verify, they have other social media accounts and I would never give them any personal info and any sort of pictures”.
Even though, dating apps provide a guide for users there is not enough support for victims due to there being no close monitoring and stricter enforcement in place to stop criminal activity from occurring.
Online dating apps already have rules that are legally binding from the moment you sign up, but it can be argued that stronger measures need to be in place to help uncover and remove the dark side. Dating apps should also do a close background check before allowing new users to use the app. Or else how many more victims of crime in relation to online dating, will there be and will this ‘dark figure’ ever be removed?
