For people looking for love online, being matched with a scammer can drain their life savings.
Congressional investigation begins in September 2025 and lasts approximately one year, It was discovered that Tinder’s fraud detection system has been working hard to keep out fraudulent accounts for years. Parent company Match Group has since taken action to address these deficiencies through new verification requirements and upgraded detection technology.
Romance scams have become a major form of financial fraud in the United States, costing Americans nearly $1.5 billion last year, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
“There’s a lot of shame associated with being a victim of fraud,” Sen. Maggie Hassan, R-Tenn., who launched the investigation along with Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said in an interview last week. “People should understand that because of the level of technology and resources these criminal enterprises now have, sophisticated people who are actually doing the right thing can still be scammed.”
I fell victim to my individuality and loneliness. I’m so ashamed of what happened.
-Sue Nuss, who spoke to Congress’s Joint Economic Committee about her experience finding a partner through Tinder.
Today, scammers can impersonate representatives from familiar organizations like the local YMCA or bank, and the accessibility of artificial intelligence tools makes it easier than ever to research family members and impersonate their voices. But romance scams can be particularly emotionally devastating, Hassan said.
That was the case for Pennsylvania resident Sue Nuss, who told Congress’s Joint Economic Committee about her experience turning to Tinder for 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 really “sees” and “understands” her.
The committee’s report released on Tuesday said the man deceived Nuss with a series of “fabricated” crises: problems with work on an oil rig, an arrest in Mexico, his mother’s stroke and even her funeral – all as excuses to demand money from the 77-year-old Nuss. She said she realized it was all a scam when the scammer behind the profile tried to trick her into believing the man she was dating was dead.
“I’ve been a very giving person my whole life, and I’ve always been a caregiver,” Nuss told NBC News last week. “I was victimized. I was very vulnerable. I was victimized because of my personality and my isolation. I am absolutely ashamed of what happened.”
She said in an interview that just days after she thought the budding online relationship fell apart, Nuss’s scammer showed up on Tinder again with the same profile.
Soon, another group of people approached her, claiming they could get back what she had lost. Then, through an elaborate cryptocurrency scheme, the group successfully defrauded Nuss of even more funds. The report said she believed the two fraud groups were connected. It added that she lost more than $700,000 in total.
“I’m struggling. Some days are really bad and some days are great. I do go to therapy. Next week I’m going to start a very specific therapy called EMDR because this is trauma,” Nuss said. “I don’t trust my decision right now.”
Congress passed the Romance Scam Prevention Act last month, which requires online dating service providers to notify and warn anyone who receives messages from potential scammers. The bill awaits President Donald Trump’s signature.
Hassan also introduced legislation this summer with Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., to create a central reporting portal for scam victims, a move she said could give the federal government the tools to detect fraud patterns so they can stop them more effectively.
According to the Global Anti-Fraud Alliance’s 2024 report, scammers stole more than $1 trillion globally in one year.
“Right now, scammers are costing the global economy more than the illegal drug trade,” Hassan said. “It’s very important to individuals. It’s very important to our economy. So the more people who speak out about the need to change the way the federal government handles fraud, the faster that’s going to happen.”
The Joint Economic Committee’s investigation aims to combat romance scams prevalent on platforms owned by Match Group, the world’s largest online dating company, whose product portfolio includes Tinder, Hinge, Match and Plenty of Fish.
Research found that nearly 1.5 million scammers or other bad actors were matched with someone on Tinder and Hinge in the third quarter of 2025. Nearly 500,000 of those accounts subsequently exchanged contact information with other users.
Internal documents voluntarily shared with the committee noted that most of Tinder’s machine learning fraud-detection models had not been updated in years, and that Match Group staff found that scammers could quickly bypass the company’s patchwork of detection rules. Too many false positives also overwhelm human reviewers trying to detect dangerous accounts.
The committee wrote that it welcomed the changes Match Group had made to address these issues.
According to the committee’s report, Match Group deployed new detection models in the second half of 2025 and the first half of 2026 to better catch bad actors. This year, it introduced 169 automated rules and “improved” another 108 rules designed to target and eliminate inauthentic actors.
One of its key measures is mandatory biometric facial checks for all new users on Tinder and Hinge, designed to prevent users from creating multiple accounts and ensure banned users cannot set up new accounts.
Yoel Roth, Match Group’s senior vice president of trust and safety, told NBC News that the company is “grateful to the committee for recognizing the significant progress we have made in protecting our users from romance scams.”
“That said, the report mischaracterizes the historical scale of our investments and the work that has been accomplished. In addition to our engagement with the committee over the past year, we have made the largest safety advancements in Match Group’s history,” Ross wrote in a statement. “Trust and security are top priorities, and we intend to continue to lead the industry in building tools that facilitate authentic, secure connections.”
According to Match Group, much of the security work, including facial checks, was already underway before the commission’s investigation. According to the report, the risk of bad actors in each market has decreased by approximately 60% since facial checks began.
Hassan similarly said these measures “have succeeded in significantly reducing the number of matches between customers and scammers.”
“However, they need to do more because there are still gaps in their system,” she added. “They need to be vigilant in new ways because criminals are always changing their techniques and tactics.”