As dating apps and websites become increasingly popular, the rise of impersonators using fake profile photographs is making the experience not only dodgier but potentially more dangerous.
Milica’s Story
“We met on Tinder, we arranged for him to come to my place. He came – he didn’t look like the person in the picture, but despite that, at first I was comfortable talking to him.” This is how Milica (not her real name) remembers meeting a man she had never seen before, arranged via the dating app Tinder. It quickly became clear to her, however, that he was not the same person whose photograph was on the app.
“We sat down and talked, I offered him sweets, but when the box fell off the table, he told me in a commanding tone to pick it up from where I’d left it. When he did this again, I brought in the dog, who growled, so he just got up and walked off, offended,” Milica recalled. “He then sent me another message and tried to contact me again, but I blocked him.”
Elena’s Encounter
Another dating app user, Elena (also not her real name), realized that the person she was exchanging messages with had used someone else’s photo. Elena said she uses social media to verify a person’s identity before going on a date, and that is how she found out that the man she had met on a dating site was an impostor. When speaking to Elena on Viber, he changed the photo she could see from the one he displayed to everyone else on the communications app. “When he talks to me, he removes the photo, but I checked from another number and he even had his wife in the Viber photo,” she said.
The Risks of Fake Profiles
As dating apps become more popular, the risk of someone pretending to be someone else – possibly someone dangerous – has become a vital issue. False representation can lead to emotional blackmail, misuse of personal data, photographs, and even extortion of money. It can seriously harm the mental health of the person being deceived and jeopardize their safety.
Popular Platforms and Fake Profiles
The most popular dating platforms in the former Yugoslav region are Tinder, Bumble, and Lepotica i Zver (Beauty and the Beast), an online dating site for people from the Balkans and the diaspora. Among LGBT people, the most popular app remains Grindr. Despite these platforms claiming their goal is to ensure safe and authentic interactions, dozens of people from Serbia told BIRN they’d had negative experiences, raising questions about whether the apps companies are doing enough to tackle fake profiles.
Police and Legal Challenges
In Serbia, the police do not classify such deceptions as high-tech crime. The Interior Ministry said they are usually classified as fraud, a crime handled by ordinary police departments across Serbia. The ministry said it is not possible to determine the exact number of reports submitted about online impersonation on dating apps. In these cases, perpetrators falsely represent themselves and promise emotional relationships, sometimes demanding money from victims under various pretexts. Another way of extorting money is by abusing explicit photos and blackmailing victims, threatening to send the images to the victims’ family members and friends if they do not pay up or comply with the perpetrator’s demands.
User Experiences and Safety Measures
Several people who responded to the questionnaire published on Balkan Insight said they had found out that an account they were communicating with was fake. One respondent described how she recognized a fake account because she already knew the person in the photo and realized that they were not the account holder. Another dating app user described recognizing a fake account because the photos looked unconvincing.
Nikola R., from Belgrade, started using Grindr a couple of years ago, in his twenties. After chatting for some time, he agreed to meet someone at a neutral location, the capital’s main square. When the app showed his date was just five meters away, Nikola texted him because he could not see the person who was pictured in the photos. “Actually, you won’t recognize me, the photos are fake,” Nikola’s date texted back. Nikola was upset: “Someone knew who I am, sees me, and I don’t really know who that person is,” he said.
App Companies’ Response
Many respondents to BIRN’s questionnaire said they always demand a video call with a person before moving the conversation any further. In 2023, Tinder introduced an update to “make the photo verification process more secure”, which allows users “to only chat with others who are photo verified”. Bumble‘s photo verification feature allows users to see “if a person has verified their photos and also allows you to request that they do so if they haven’t gotten around to it yet”.
Djordje Sokanovic, founder of the Lepotica i Zver website, said it has not received any reports of the misuse of data so far. He highlighted that the attempted registration of accounts with photos of famous people – singers, actors, and athletes – is common and is dealt with. “We block such accounts, and the email address is no longer welcome with us,” he said.
The Dark Reality of Online Dating
An earlier investigation by BIRN showed that a significant proportion of women from Serbia who seek partners on the internet experience unpleasant incidents, such as harassment, hate speech, stalking, and sexual abuse. Few feel ready to seek help. In the BIRN survey, a quarter of respondents reported stalking, harassment, or sexual abuse, while two-thirds reported some other form of unpleasant experience.
The situation is also worrying when it comes to LGBT dating apps. BIRN’s analysis highlights the dangers faced by LGBT people using dating apps like Grindr in Bosnia and Serbia. In Sarajevo, five gay men were attacked last year in separate incidents by two individuals who posed as potential dates to rob their victims, causing an atmosphere of insecurity within the community.
Conclusion
Bad experiences with dating apps do not necessarily stop people from using them forever. In Serbia, Tinder-user Milica said that after she ignored a follow-up message from the man who used someone else’s photo, she then blocked him, and “we never saw each other again”. But she also said that, while shaken by the experience, she has continued to use Tinder anyway.
The prevalence of fake profiles and impersonators on dating apps highlights the need for stronger safety measures and user vigilance to ensure a safer and more trustworthy online dating environment.
