The Tinder Phone Number Scam is the most common threats found on the platform, affecting millions of users on a daily basis. If you are reading this article, you may be already a possible victim of the Tinder Phone Number Scam.

How a Tinder phone number scam begins

A Tinder phone number scam begins with a user or a profile starting an actual conversation with you.

Very quickly, the person will try to make you call or text a particular number, or also ask you for your phone number.

The scammer will urge you using messages with urgency and mystery, leaving the victim to want to find out more. For example, a common example would be a female profile sending such a message to a male user:

"help! i really want to talk to you but my boyfriend will see this app. Text me! 209-242-1414 xx"

What happens after you make the call or send the text

Basically, the conversation will mostly just ends there. The profile very usually goes silent and stop replying completely.

In some instances, the other party does reply a few times, before similarly disappearing.

However, the important thing to know is, you have already given out your phone number to the scammer at this point.

What will happen to you?

Once you have given out your number, it will be used to steal your personal information and intrude on your personal privacy.

Fisrt, your number is likely to be saved to a database, and then sold to multiple calling list for other scams and for telemarketing purposes.

Then, the scammers could also subscribe you to a series of SMS advertisements for adult websites.

In other invasive cases, an actual person could even would call back, and pose as a damsel in distress, with some urgent need of getting some money, like needing money to pay the rent by today or will be thrown out of her own home.

Who exactly is behind the tinder phone number scam?

There are mostly two types of scammer behind the Tinder Phone number scam. One type would be a real person who sits behind his or her phone to match and talk to a large number of users as possible.

In another cases, bot script are used to create fake profiles and to talk and match on the site. Because of the ease of creating multiple profiles in an automated fashion, fake bot profiles are extremely prevalent on the site and a good proportion of the person you see may be fake bots.

How to detect tinder phone number scam

You should take preventive measures to  protect yourself from the phone number scam on Tinder. Here are some useful times.

  1. Do not match with accounts that look untrustworthy
  2. Do not reply are chatting with an overly active account with provocative messages within a short time and demanding action
  3. Buy a second phone number and give that out instead of your real one

See also: Should I give out my real phone number on Tinder?

Help! What to do after I have given out my number?

If you have already fallen a victim of the Tinder phone number scam, you need to do the following:

  1. Block or do not answer calls from numbers you do not know
  2. Monitor your bank and email accounts for verification code messages
  3. Report the incident to Tinder.