Catfishing, Scams, and Safety: How to Stay Safe on Dating Apps

Dating apps can change your life. They can also ruin it — if you’re not paying attention.

Romance scams, catfishing, sextortion, and identity theft are real, common, and increasingly sophisticated. The FTC reported that Americans lost over $1.3 billion to romance scams in 2022. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) consistently ranks romance fraud among the highest-dollar cybercrime categories.

This guide covers everything you need to know to stay safe — the types of scams, the red flags, practical protective steps, and how platform design affects your risk.

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Types of Dating App Scams

1. Romance Scams (Long Con)

The classic romance scam runs over weeks or months. A fake profile — often using stolen photos of an attractive, credible-seeming person — builds a relationship with you. The scammer establishes emotional intimacy, often quickly (“love bombing”), then introduces a manufactured crisis requiring money.

Common crisis scenarios:

• Medical emergency (“I’m overseas and my card was declined”)
• Business investment opportunity (“I’m a trader and I can double your money”)
• Travel costs to finally meet in person (“My flight got cancelled and I need $500”)
• Military service complications (“I’m deployed and need help accessing my account”)

The money request often starts small and escalates. By the time it reaches thousands of dollars, the victim has emotional investment that makes it hard to walk away.

Who is targeted: Romance scams disproportionately target people who are recently divorced, widowed, or lonely — people for whom genuine connection is a high priority. This isn’t a reflection of naivety; it’s sophisticated emotional exploitation.

2. Catfishing

Catfishing is creating a false identity to deceive someone, not always for financial gain. Some catfishers seek emotional connection under a false persona. Others are collecting information for blackmail, stalking, or harassment.

Catfishing differs from romance scams in motivation: romance scammers want money; catfishers often want control, information, or connection under false pretenses.

3. Sextortion

Sextortion scams often start with a match who moves quickly to explicit conversation or video chat. In some cases, they record the interaction without consent. In others, the “match” is AI-generated or uses a pre-recorded video to appear live.

The scammer then threatens to share the material with your contacts, employer, or family unless you pay — typically in cryptocurrency or gift cards.

Sextortion is a rapidly growing crime. The FBI reported a dramatic increase in cases involving minors, and adults are increasingly targeted as well.

4. Pig Butchering (Cryptocurrency Investment Scams)

“Pig butchering” (from a Chinese phrase meaning “fattening a pig before slaughter”) involves building a romantic connection over weeks, then introducing a supposedly lucrative cryptocurrency investment platform.

The victim is shown impressive returns on small initial deposits, encouraged to invest more, then finds they cannot withdraw funds. The platform is fake; the “profits” are fabricated to encourage larger deposits.

This scam has become extraordinarily sophisticated, often involving large criminal organizations operating overseas.

5. Identity Theft

Some fake profiles exist purely to harvest personal information: full name, employer, neighborhood, phone number, social media profiles. Combined with data from breaches or public records, this can enable identity fraud.

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Red Flags: How to Spot a Scam

They Refuse to Video Call

Modern smartphones make video calling trivial. If someone you’ve been talking to for weeks won’t do a simple FaceTime or Zoom call — citing broken cameras, work restrictions, or constant bad timing — it’s a serious red flag.

Even video calls aren’t fully protective against sophisticated actors who use AI-generated deepfakes. But consistent refusal to call is a significant warning sign.

Their Story Doesn’t Add Up

Romance scammers often have elaborate backstories — military deployment, international business travel, oil rig work — that conveniently explain why they can’t meet in person and why they might need financial help. Look for inconsistencies between their story and their photos, the way they write, or things they’ve said previously.

They Move Very Fast Emotionally

Love bombing — overwhelming affection, declarations of love within days, intense focus on you specifically — is a manipulation technique. It creates a sense of obligation and connection that makes the eventual request harder to refuse.

Genuine romantic interest typically develops over time and doesn’t feel pressured.

They Ask for Money or Crypto

A real person you’ve met on a dating app will not ask you for money. Full stop. It doesn’t matter how good the reason sounds, how much you trust them, or how small the initial amount is. No legitimate romantic connection requires you to send money to someone you’ve never met in person.

Their Profile Seems Too Perfect

Stock-photo attractive, impressive career, vague about specific details, no mutual connections. Reverse image search their profile photos (right-click on desktop, or use Google Lens on mobile). If the same face appears under a different name, you’ve found a catfish.

They Avoid Specifics

Ask about their neighborhood, their job, something verifiable about their daily life. Scammers often deflect: they’re “between apartments,” or “you wouldn’t know the area,” or they change the subject. Genuine people can talk about their lives in specifics.

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Practical Safety Steps

Before You Share Personal Information

• Don’t share your last name, employer, neighborhood, or phone number until you’ve verified the person is real
• Don’t share your social media profiles too early — they contain a lot of searchable information
• Use in-app messaging until you’re confident the connection is genuine

Before You Meet

• Always tell someone where you’re going, who you’re meeting, and when you expect to be back
• Meet in a public place for the first several dates — never at home or anywhere isolated
• Video call first — see and hear the person before meeting in person
• Trust your gut — if something feels off, it probably is

If You’re Suspicious

• Do a reverse image search on their profile photos
• Search their name, employer, and other details for inconsistencies
• Ask specific, verifiable questions about things they’ve mentioned
• Report suspicious profiles — on any platform, this helps protect others

Never Do These Things

• Send money, gift cards, or cryptocurrency to someone you haven’t met in person
• Share intimate photos or videos before establishing real-world trust
• Give someone remote access to your device or financial accounts
• Click on links sent through dating app messages — phishing links are common

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How Platform Design Affects Your Risk

Not all platforms are equally safe. The structural features of a platform significantly affect the risk of encountering scams and catfishing.

Verification matters: Platforms that verify identity before allowing profiles to go live prevent most fake profiles before they can harm anyone. Platforms that rely on user reports remove fake profiles after harm has occurred.

Business model matters: As we wrote in our post on how dating apps make money, ad-supported platforms have a structural incentive to tolerate fake profiles that drive engagement. Subscription-only platforms are aligned with users’ interest in a clean, authentic experience.

Real-time features matter: Fake profiles and bots operate most effectively in asynchronous environments — sending messages to hundreds of users and waiting for responses. Real-time availability matching makes this kind of operation much less effective.

On Gettit, we address these structural problems directly:

• Mandatory identity verification before profiles go live
• NCMEC database cross-referencing
• Azure AI-powered proactive content moderation
• Real-time matching that reduces the effectiveness of bot operations
• A subscription model that doesn’t benefit from fake profiles

Our CSAE Policy details our specific commitments around child safety and abuse prevention.

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If You’ve Been Scammed

It happens to careful people. Scammers are professionals who exploit psychological vulnerabilities.

Steps to take:

1. Stop all contact with the scammer immediately
2. Report to the platform — use the in-app reporting tools
3. Report to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov — your report helps build cases against fraud rings
4. Report to the FBI’s IC3 at ic3.gov — especially for significant financial losses
5. Contact your bank immediately if you sent money via bank transfer
6. Don’t blame yourself — these are sophisticated criminal operations

If sextortion is involved: do not pay. Payment rarely stops the threats and marks you as a target for further extortion. Report to the FBI’s IC3 and the platform immediately.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is it safe to use dating apps?

Dating apps can be safe when you use them carefully and choose platforms with strong safety features. The risks are real but manageable with the right practices and platform choices.

What is the safest dating app?

Safety varies by platform design, not just marketing. Platforms with mandatory identity verification, proactive AI moderation, and subscription-only business models are structurally safer than ad-supported platforms with reactive moderation. Gettit was designed with safety as a core principle, not an afterthought.

How do I know if I’m being catfished?

Key signs: refusal to video call, inconsistencies in their story, photos that appear in reverse image searches under different names, overly rapid emotional escalation, requests for personal information or money. If something feels off, trust that instinct.

What should I do if someone on a dating app asks me for money?

Stop all contact immediately and report the profile. No legitimate romantic interest from someone you’ve never met in person will involve a request for money. This is the defining characteristic of a romance scam.

Can AI generate fake dating profiles now?

Yes. AI-generated photos (from tools like Midjourney or Stable Diffusion) are increasingly used for fake profiles. Traditional reverse image search may not catch these. The more important signals are behavioral: refusal to video call, scripted-feeling messages, inconsistencies in their story.

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The Bottom Line

Dating apps introduce real people to your life — but also real risks. Understanding those risks, recognizing the patterns, and choosing platforms that take safety seriously makes an enormous difference.

Gettit was built to be the platform that takes safety seriously — with verified profiles, proactive moderation, and a business model that doesn’t benefit from fake accounts.

Sign Up Now and get 6 months of Gettit Plus free. Real people only.