Australian woman looking for love on Hinge loses $160,000 in crypto scam
Crypto scams are on the rise right around the world as thieves develop clever new ways to steal your hard earned cash.
Now, it seems they’ve even taken to dating apps.
An Australian woman, going by the pseudonym Cheryl, has shared her heartbreak after a match on Hinge scammed her out of $160,000.
Speaking to News.com.au, the 30-year-old says she was looking for love but wasn’t having any luck on Bumble or Tinder.
This is when she turned to Hinge and soon stumbled on a user called Jackson.
Jackson was chatty, friendly and the pair even shared intimate photos with each other.
After several weeks and hundreds of messages, the individual convinced Cheryl to invest in a cryptocurrency share platform, known as Blackstone Trading.
She started with a $1000 investment and, as her profits continued to grow, she invested more and more.
But the account was later frozen due to so-called “suspicious activity”. Cheryl was told she would need to deposit 50 per cent of her balance – which was around $50,000 – to unlock it.
Cheryl did this, but it didn’t work. The company asked for another 20 per cent, before Cheryl caught on and realised it was all a scam.
“I ended up blocking him on WhatsApp, I deleted him from my Hinge account, I’ll never use Hinge ever again.”
Unfortunately crypto scams like this are becoming more and more common.
Dating platform Hinge has responded to this incident, saying they take fraud “very seriously”. Meanwhile, they are “continuing to invest in new updates and technologies to keep users safe”.
“We encourage users to verify their accounts and match with others that have verified their profiles.”
But it’s too late for Cheryl. Her money is gone and so too is Jackson.
