Dating app, love and cheating, calls! But beware… a new way to cheat with food bills

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New Delhi:

Using a dating app to find love can also lead to scams. In fact, in the past few days, there have been several cases of people being scammed and robbed on dating apps. When actually going on a date, food is ordered and then the reality of the date hits. Where instead of a bill of a few thousand rupees, a huge bill is given and on protesting, they are held hostage and forced to pay the bill. This scam is not running in any one city but in many big cities. Such cases have been reported in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

Social activist Deepika Narayana Bharadwaj posted a post on X earlier this month, in which she shared a photo of a bill and talked about how people are being duped in the name of dating. Describing the ‘Hyderabad dating scam’, he said people are trapped in the same club every day.

Even after the incident, people do not go to the police

Victims’ accounts revealed that the same club operated under three different names and that the same woman approached multiple men on a dating app and took them to the pub. In some cases the bill is coming up to Rs 20,000 to Rs 40,000. In this case, most people do not go to the police because during the investigation, their family may find out that they are meeting people through dating apps. Due to which the perpetrators of such crimes are also encouraged.

People are trapped like this

The victim meets the woman on dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, Hinge and OkCupid and the woman easily shares her WhatsApp number. The two start talking and soon they plan a date. However, in the meantime the woman insists on meeting in a certain area and says that there are many cafes and pubs there. When the victim asks for the name of the cafe, the woman tells him to meet her at a certain metro station and tells her they can go there.

When the bill arrives, the reality of the debt comes to the fore.

A woman orders in a cafe. A guy eager to impress his date usually doesn’t suspect foul play. However, after this the woman orders something that is not on the menu. In some cases, the woman pretends to have an emergency and quickly leaves the cafe. After this, when the bill arrives, the victim realizes that he has been cheated and the bill is many times higher than he expected. Cafe staff or bouncers threaten him if he opposes this. In such a situation, it pays off when there are very few options left.

Social activist Deepika Narayan Bharadwaj has shared the stories of three victims with her post.

A victim’s story

A person mentioned that he had been defrauded of Rs 16,000 and said he wanted to remain anonymous and not reveal his identity. Referring to the case, he said he met a girl on the dating app Tinder, who invited him to meet her at the Hitech Metro station in Hyderabad. After this we went to a club and he ordered expensive whiskey and food. He took 5 drinks one after the other and my total bill came to Rs 16 thousand. When I first went to the club I thought it was normal. However, when I went back and checked about the bar on Google Maps, I found that one of the two people there had been scammed. He said that in some places the name of the bar is Attitude Cable and Lounge, in some places it is Devil’s Night Club and in some places it is Mosh and they are all the same. It is on the 4th floor of the Galleria Mall and near the Hitech City Metro Station in Hyderabad.

Another victim’s story

Along with this, another person wrote that a girl named Ritika has cheated me. After matching on Tinder, he asked me to meet him at Hitech metro station on the same day and asked to go to nearby Galleria mall. He said she took him to Mosh Club on the fourth floor of the mall, where he ordered some fire shots and expensive drinks, the bill of which came to Rs 40,508. Mosh is a pub in Hyderabad, but the payment was made to an account in Delhi. This account of HDFC is in Sarada Nagar branch. Later, when I looked at the club’s Google reviews, I found out that it was involved in a scam. He also said that Rs 500 was also taken as entry fee and only my details were taken, but the girl’s details were not taken. As for the drinks the girl ordered, I doubt she was offered coke or something because after taking seven 60ml shots she didn’t notice any difference.

The story of the third victim

The story of the third victim is no different from both. He said I met a girl on Tinder and the very next day she asked me out. We were supposed to meet at the Galleria mall next to the hi-tech metro station and then go somewhere, but when I arrived he asked me to come inside the mall and get something to eat. He said let’s go to the top floor of the mall, but suddenly he pressed the elevator switch to the fourth floor. Paid Rs 500 to enter the fourth floor club and after entering he looked at the menu and ordered food and drinks for both of them. It didn’t let me look at the menu properly and I thought it would be the usual pub fare. He ordered Jaeger shots with Red Bull 7-8 times in an hour. He ordered Fireshot which costs Rs 2,000. After this the waiter told me that the bill had gone over 20 thousand rupees and after that I stopped him from taking the order. He gave me the bill and it was Rs 24 thousand. I was shocked at the price of the menu and didn’t know what to do. I offered to pay the bill through Zomato which was an offer. However, the pub management did not allow this to happen and said it was not working. However, the fact is that table booking option and bill payment option are available on Zomato. I argued with him for a while but he refused. At that time I felt that I had been cheated.

Also Read:

* Swipe right on ‘Tinder’, date and then get billed for millions… The dating app is being scammed
* Beware of dating apps! Delhi Police has revealed that people are falling prey to such fraud
* He’ll call a date at a restaurant, then run away… The amazing gang that robbed millions from ‘Bill’ in Delhi.


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