Scary online dating stories are becoming more prevalent as more of the popular online dating
apps are developed and used by people who are looking to meet someone special.
Throughout the last few years, authorities have warned users of these online dating apps
to pay attention to true Tinder horror stories,
as they serve a cautionary tale for anyone meeting with a total stranger for the first time.
5. Tinder Robbery
Dating apps such as Tinder are often used by criminals to take advantage
of unsuspecting victims who assume that they are meeting someone for a date but
end up living through a Tinder horror story. This was the case when a man
from Sacramento matched with a woman on Tinder and they agreed to meet up.
The man, whose name is being withheld, matched with a woman named Emily Leadford and after
chatting for a while, they decided to meet in person. Leadford told the man
to meet her at a local park and that she would be waiting there for him.
The man made his way to the arranged spot and saw Leadford sitting in a vehicle.
He walked over to the car and got in via the passenger door.
Shortly after, as they sat talking, the man heard someone knocking on his window.
He turned to see who it was and was shocked when he realized that two
men, Mondolayo Benjamin Lane and Ezekiel Moore were standing next to the car,
one of them holding a firearm. The two men then ordered him to get out of the car
and demanded that he hand over his wallet, money and jewelry, which he did.
The man told police officers that one of the men said: “Don’t be a hero, don’t do anything stupid”.
After stealing his valuables, Leadford took his phone from him
and he was ordered to throw his car keys away.
As the robbers were about to leave, the man demanded that they return his phone,
to which Leadford reacted by throwing it on the ground before walking away.
The man became infuriated and lunged at the man with the weapon,
but he was soon wrestled to the ground and assaulted by the two robbers.
They then got into Leadford’s car and sped away. The following day,
the man decided to create a new, fake Tinder profile and connected with Leadford once more.
He arranged another meeting and waited at the arranged spot.
When Leadford and her fellow criminals arrived, he phoned the police and the three were arrested.
4. FXSM
In early 2021, a London nursery school worker named only as Diane, met a man called Andy on
Tinder and after talking about their interests, likes and dislikes for a short while, he told her
that he was in love with her and that he wanted to buy a house where they could move in together.
When she asked what type of work he does, he told her that he made money from cryptocurrency
trading and that she should try it out for herself. She told him that she didn’t know
anything about trading, but he reassured her that he would teach her everything she needed to know.
She was unsure at first, but when he sent pictures of his website
showing that he was making a lot of money, she became convinced and decided to invest.
She transferred about $6,700 from her bank account into the cryptocurrency exchange; Binance,
and from there, into the FXSM trading site as was recommended by her Tinder match.
She started receiving reports from FXSM showing that her trading was going very
well and Andy convinced her to invest even more money. She ended up investing a total of
$67,000 which the site reported to have grown to $335,000 in a short time span.
She then decided to withdraw the money, but she was told that she needed to pay 10% of her balance
to account for her taxes. She replied that she didn’t have the amount needed
and received a message saying that if she failed to do so within one month, action would be taken
against her, her account would be frozen and she would be reported for tax evasion.
She was also told that, if she failed to comply by the deadline,
a 1% charge would be levied against her account per day. When she stood her ground,
Andy suddenly stopped messaging her and she would later find out that the pictures he
had sent to her were lifted from the Facebook page of an unrelated man living in Germany.
After the incident, Tinder urged its users to never send money to someone they have never met,
as these types of crimes have become ever more prevalent.
3. Tobias Clarke
When meeting someone on an online dating app like Tinder, it is impossible to gauge what
their personality is truly like. This is a lesson that 25-year-old Tia Bryan
from Bartley Green in Birmingham in the UK, learned the hard way.
In July of 2019, Tia matched on Tinder with a man named Tobias Clarke but unbeknownst to her,
Clarke’s mugshot had been circulating on social media sites as he was being sought by police over
serious assault charges. Posts asking for anyone who knows him to come forward read: “Do you know
where Tobias Clarke is? The 25-year-old is wanted for a serious assault as well as other charges”.
But Tia was none the wiser and she agreed to meet with him after talking over the phone
for a couple of weeks. For the first few days, everything seemed to be going well
until one of their dates turned into a Tinder horror story when Clarke flew into a jealous rage.
After finding out that Tia had received a text message from a male friend,
Clarke started assaulting her, beating her with her own mobile phone
and ramming her into a closet while they were in one of Tia’s friend’s apartment.
He also threatened her with a screwdriver and left scars on her back by biting her.
He then broke her phone and retreated to the corner of the room, threatening to harm himself.
When they ordered food for delivery, Tia went downstairs to collect it and when she returned,
he assaulted her again, accusing her of trying to get attention from the delivery driver.
Her friends returned to the apartment from holiday a few days later and they assisted her in getting
her own place. Whenever they were together in front of her friends, Clarke would pretend to
be a nice guy, but as soon as they were alone, she said he turned into a monster once again.
He then forced her to change her phone number and only allowed her to have him,
her mother and her granddad as contacts. When she left to attend a course,
she showed the bite marks to her course tutor who contacted the police.
Officers met with her at her grandparents’ house and others waited at her house for
Clarke. He would not be arrested until almost a year later and at his hearing,
despite having 12 previous assault convictions to his name,
Judge Richard Bond handed him a mere 16-month sentence which was suspended for 2 years.
When Match Group, the owner of dating apps Tinder and Plenty of Fish
was asked what was being done to protect their users from criminals like Clarke, they responded
by saying that background checks may soon be implemented for users of their apps in the UK.
2. Luis Almanza, Aaronanna Martinez and Sierra Petit
On the 4th of September, 2021, a scary online dating story unfolded
in Oklahoma City. A man who has not been named, matched on Tinder with a woman
and they decided to meet up at a house party that the woman would be attending that night.
On his way to the house, he decided to stop at a store and bought a few bottles of alcohol
which he brought with him to the party. Upon arriving at the residence,
he met up with the woman and they spent the night getting to know each other.
At around 2 am, the man started asking fellow party goers
when they would be reimbursing him for the alcohol that he brought.
The woman then flew into a rage and, together with her sister, pushed him up against a wall.
He was then threatened with a blade and a firearm while being told that he was going
to be robbed of all his money. The woman, who was later identified as Sierra Petti,
then destroyed his phone and for the next 5 hours, he was held hostage.
They then forced him into a car and drove to different parts of the city where he was
forced to make withdrawals from his bank account and to buy items of clothing for his captors.
After further attempts to get money from his card failed, he was eventually brought
back to the house where he was told not to contact police as his family would be harmed.
The following day, he reported the incident to police resulting in Luis Almanza,
Aaronanna Martinez and Sierra Petit being arrested for the crime.
The three robbers all face charges of felony kidnapping and robbery.
1. Brittany
At 5:30 am on a July morning in 2014, a 34-year-old Australian man
matched with a 20-year-old woman named Brittany on Tinder
and the two continued messaging each other throughout the rest of the morning.
At one point, Brittany told the man that she would be willing to meet up with him, but that
it would cost him $290 and a bottle of Wild Turkey Bourbon. He agreed and they arranged to meet in a
car park near Lake Macquarie’s Morisset Pool in New South Wales at around 5 pm that same day.
When he arrived, he noticed a parked car nearby with two men sitting inside.
His phone rang and it was Brittany saying that she was in the car with the men
and told him to come over so that she could hug him.
But as he approached, a man, later identified as Jack Anthony Croucher from Bonnels Bay, got out
of the car armed with a steel pole. He started threatening the man and forced him to hand over
his wallet as well as his iPhone and the bottle of bourbon that he had brought for the date.
Croucher then took the $290 that the man had in his wallet and ordered him to hand over
his credit card, but the victim refused. This caused Croucher to become enraged and he used
the metal pole to smash the man’s car’s windshield before he, the other man and Brittany walked away.
The man then managed to drive to a nearby gas station where he phoned
for a truck to have his car towed away. He then made his way to a police station where
he reported the robbery and explained what had happened during the incident.
Shortly after, Croucher was arrested along with the woman who claimed to be Brittany. They were
both charged with armed robbery. Croucher also faced charges related to an early-morning ATM
theft that he committed at the Cooranbong News Agency five months prior to the Tinder attack.
In that incident, Croucher and four members of the Rebels Outlaw motorcycle gang
attempted to steal an ATM in February of 2014. CCTV cameras located at the building
caught Croucher reversing a 4-wheel drive vehicle up to the ATM at 4:15 am.
4 men were then seen jumping out of the vehicle and fetching a tow strap from the trunk. But
before they could attach it to the ATM, the store’s owner arrived and the robbers fled.
Croucher was ultimately sentenced to 6 months in prison for his role
in the Tinder robbery with three months of that time being a non-parole period.