Despite the fact that online dating apps like Tinder give us the opportunity to meet people
online from the safety of our homes, there are many Tinder horror stories that will make
most people think twice before meeting up with a virtual stranger.
Many of these Tinder stories may sound fake, but real people lived through them and serve
as a cautionary tale.
5.
Tinder Scam
A 29-year-old man from South Africa, only named as Ethan, lived through his own Tinder
horror story after meeting what he thought was the perfect man through the dating app.
In July of 2019, Ethan matched with a man named Cris and at first the two just chatted
casually via the app.
Before too long, they exchanged phone numbers and started messaging each other, their conversations
becoming more meaningful, though they didn’t exchange any further information and kept
their exchanges on the lighter side.
Cris said that he was a gemologist who sourced minerals from around the world.
Ethan was impressed by his job title and found the pictures that Cris sent of his everyday
life endearing, such as playing with his dogs, airport selfies and the like.
In fact, Ethan was so taken by Cris that he saw himself spending the rest of his life
with him.
As time passed and they continued chatting, he became more attracted to him and they started
phoning each other every day.
In September, Cris told Ethan that he was going on a business trip to India, but would
be doing some shopping first.
During his shopping trip, he sent Ethan a photo of a nice suit and said that he wanted
to buy it for him.
Ethan was hesitant at first, since the suit looked expensive, but he decided to accept
the gift after Cris told him that he wanted to spoil him.
After accepting, Cris sent more pictures of other gifts that he had bought for him, including
a brand new iPhone, a laptop and a Gucci bag.
Following the pictures, he asked for Ethan’s delivery address but he felt skeptical, so
sent his work address instead as it was more public and made him feel slightly less apprehensive.
During the following week, the two kept in touch and Cris sent pictures of the Tanzanite
stones that he was selling in India and Ethan felt he had no cause for concern.
He then received a call from a woman with a strong European accent who claimed to be
from a courier company.
She said that they had three boxes to deliver and wanted to confirm his delivery address.
A few minutes later, Cris messaged to say that he had received confirmation that the
goods were in South Africa but told him not to open the largest box since there was a
surprise inside.
An hour later, the courier called again and informed Ethan that, because of the size of
the gifts, customs was reluctant to let them through and a further payment of $150 would
be needed.
Alarm bells started ringing, but he figured that the gifts were worth a lot more and so
he paid the fee.
Half an hour later, she phoned back again saying that the Gucci bag was full of foreign
currency that hadn’t been declared and that Ethan would need to pay a $400 admission of
guilt fine with a further $700 to convert the money into South African Rand.
They settled on the $700 amount and Ethan paid, but never heard from the courier or
Cris again.
4.
Brian Matthew Cornelius
In 2012, an unnamed woman from St. Paul in Minnesota shared her Tinder horror story after
she found out that a man who she met via the app was not who he claimed to be.
Three months after getting divorced from her abusive husband, the woman confided in a man
called Aaron Carpenter about the struggles in her life and the problems she had with
her ex-husband, Brian Cornelius.
They would eventually start texting and emailing each other and she felt that they had a real
connection.
In March of that year, she was assaulted by Cornelius and she told Carpenter that she
planned to get an order of protection against her ex.
But on the day that she was meant to appear in court to have the order approved, Carpenter
persuaded her to skip the hearing and the order was dismissed.
But when Cornelius started showing up in places where she had only told Carpenter she would
be and he started mentioning things that only Carpenter would know, she put two and two
together and realized that Cornelius had been masquerading as Carpenter all along.
She confronted him and he admitted to using pictures that he had downloaded from Google
to create the fake persona.
She told police that she felt terrorized by Cornelius and that she was in constant fear
that he was watching her.
She filed for a protection order which was ultimately granted and Cornelius went on to
face stalking charges.
3.
Cecilie Fjellhoy
In 2019, 29-year-old Cecilie Fjellhoy thought she had met the perfect man when she matched
with 28-year-old Simon Leviev (Lev Eee Ev), but it would turn out to become a Tinder story
that she would live to regret.
Cecilie was a Norwegian graduate student living in London when she met Leviev who claimed
to be an Israeli millionaire who was known as “The King of Diamonds’.
After chatting online for a while, she agreed to meet with him and was surprised by how
lavish their first date, which included a private plane trip to Bulgaria, was.
Following this, they would continue their relationship via text messages, video chats
and voice messages.
Everything seemed to be going well and she found herself falling for him.
She stated that she loved receiving his texts and calls and that she felt that he genuinely
wanted to get to know her, even though they didn’t get to see each other as he explained
that he was constantly travelling for work.
He claimed that it was hard for him to visit her in London due to threats from working
in the diamond industry.
But not too long after, Leviev asked Cecilie to open a line of credit for him in her name
so that he could keep his money and assets safe from his many enemies.
He spent the money on dinners, expensive hotels and plane tickets that were booked under her
name, in order to throw off these enemies.
He promised to reimburse her for the expenses, but as days turned into weeks, her balance
continued to increase.
He then asked her to apply for an American Express platinum card under her name and to
state her income as $270, 000, assuring her that no one would check if it was legitimate.
Soon, Leviev had maxed out this card as well, spending $224, 000 in just 54 days and racked
up bills to pay his bodyguard, two assistants and flights across the globe.
This is when she found out that Leviev was really a man named Shimon Hayut, a conman
who had been convicted in Scandinavia of swindling women out of millions of dollars.
The news shocked her so badly that she had to be taken up in a psychiatric ward.
Hayut was arrested in Greece during an operation carried out by Interpol and Israeli police.
Israeli authorities requested that he be extradited back to Israel where he had been wanted on
theft, forgery and fraud charges for years.
He was also under investigation for fraud in the UK, Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany.
He was overheard saying to another woman, as he stood outside a police station, that
he would be free within a month and that none of the rumors that she had heard about him
were true.
2.
Maegan Tapley
24-year-old Maegan Tapley from Massachusetts lived through a true Tinder horror story when
she met 25-year-old bodybuilder, Erich Stelzer via the dating app in 2018.
After matching on the app, the two decided to meet in person and seemed to hit it off.
They went on a few more dates, but on the 27th of December, things took a turn for the
worse.
After going out on a date, Maegan didn’t want Erich to walk home in the cold or to
have to rely on an Uber ride, so she offered to take him home just before 10 pm.
But when she dropped him off at his house, he changed and refused to let her leave.
Before she knew what was happening, he started assaulting her and attacking her with a blade.
When she realized what was going on, she started screaming as loudly as she could and thankfully,
someone close by heard her and contacted 911.
When police arrived and entered Stelzer’s house, the 6-foot-8 man was still attacking
her and they decided to use tasers in order to subdue him.
At this point, Maegan managed to break free and escaped after which she was taken to a
local hospital where she received treatment.
Stelzer was arrested, but reacted badly to being tased and was also taken to hospital
after EMTs provided medical treatment.
However, as he was being transported to hospital, he became unresponsive and later passed away.
Stelzer’s father would later state that he had no idea why his son would react in
such a way as he is usually a happy-go-lucky guy and that he was sorry for what happened
to Meagan.
It would later be revealed by his family that Erich had been receiving treatment from mental
health professionals over the previous month, but that he had been declining since Christmas
of that year when he started having delusions and suffering from extreme paranoia.
1.
Jocelyn Zakhour
When Jocelyn Zakhour was 20 years old, she was kidnapped by her then partner who kept
her hostage in Syria until her parents were able to pay $400, 000 for her release.
She felt guilty that they had suffered such a massive financial loss and so, she started
gambling in hopes that she could win enough money to pay them back.
But this resulted in her becoming addicted to gambling and she would later state that
she enjoyed it because it helped her to forget the problems that she faced in her everyday
life.
Despite not having much money and clearly having a gambling problem, she was invited
to become a VIP member in the Mahogany Room while living at the Crown Casino in Melbourne.
Soon she was rubbing shoulders with high rollers and she started chatting to a 54-year-old
chief executive on Tinder in June of 2018.
They quickly formed a relationship and after they had been together for a week, she brought
up an idea that she had of purchasing a blueberry farm in New South Wales.
The man agreed to give her money to purchase seeds, pay farm workers and for harvests and
transferred $728, 700 over 5 months into her bank account.
This money would, however, soon be gambled away by Jocelyn at the tables.
She did, however, buy the man what she claimed to be a $60, 000 Rolex watch, but police would
later confirm that it was a cheap knock-off.
When the man refused to give her more money, she sent a total of 240 emails over a three
week period in which she threatened to have his wife, children and mother harmed if he
didn’t provide more funds.
He eventually had no choice but to contact police but he would soon suffer a debilitating
stroke after the Tinder horror story left him psychologically scarred and penniless.
Jocelyn was arrested on the 12th of December, 2018 and it would come to light that she had
scammed another man out of $61, 000 in the same fashion.
She later stated that her only regret was that she didn’t do more with
the money.