Are Restaurants Secretly Using Dating Apps to Attract Customers?
Have you ever been stood up on a date and felt like something fishy was going on? A theory has been circulating on TikTok. It suggests that certain restaurants might be leveraging dating apps as a tactic to attract customers.
One TikToker shared her own experience, recounting a night when she got dressed up for a date, only to be ghosted by her online match. To add insult to injury, she discovered he had unmatched her. Frustrated by her experience, she decided to enjoy a solo dinner at the designated restaurant. Later, she unexpectedly encountered another person with an identical story.
In a viral video, the second woman revealed that her date, too, had vanished without a trace, leaving her stranded at the restaurant. Checking her dating app, she found out she had been unmatched, just like the first TikTok user. As it turns out, both had fallen prey to what some call a “venue promotion scam.”
According to Make Us Of, an online tech source, this deceptive scheme involves fake Tinder profiles luring people to a specific venue, often a restaurant, for a meetup. However, when you arrive, your match is nowhere to be found. And you may encounter others who have fallen for the same scheme by the same profile at the venue.
There’s also a variation of this scam where the online date suggests a high-end venue, accumulates a high bill and then vanishes, leaving the unsuspecting individual stuck with the tab.
Norton, a company specializing in antivirus and malware software, highlights certain indicators of a Tinder scam. These include staying alert to profile photos that seem extensively altered through Photoshop and being cautious of profiles consistently pushing for a specific meeting location. If you’re worried you may have encountered a Tinder scammer, they suggest taking screenshots of conversations and reporting and blocking the user profile. Take a look at Norton’s full list of tips and warnings here.
