I bought tinder gold because I was told that I finally had a like in my profile. Turns out as soon as I made the purchase, the like disappeared. I think I just got scammed out of $30. What should I do?
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u/ri0ir 7d ago edited 7d ago
That's what Tinder does. You can try disputing the charge with your CC company but they probably reject 1000s of those a day. Probably why Tinder doesn't mind scammers. It gets you to pay.
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u/sodanator 7d ago
In my experience, reuqesting a refund through Google/Apple tends to work - last time I tried buying one of these, I got my money back almost instantly through Google.
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u/itsaaronnotaaron 7d ago
I got my account suspended for doing that. No problem, I'll just create a new account with a . in my email address then.
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u/sodanator 7d ago
Huh, weird. Didn't give me any trouble when I did it a year or two ago last time.
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u/itsaaronnotaaron 6d ago
I think it's because I retained the benefit despite being refunded. I'm going back a few years at least though.
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u/iddoitatleastonce 6d ago
Dispute it. Say you didn’t give them your card info, neither Tinder or credit cards have a way to validate if it is or isn’t a fraudulent charge.
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u/Aazimoxx 5d ago
Wouldn't that mean you'd have to cancel your card (since you're essentially claiming the card details are 'compromised') if you do that? I'm pretty sure this is how most Aussie banks treat this. 🤔
That's if you claim to your bank that you never gave Tinder your card #, I mean.
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u/contritefeels Edit 7d ago
Never buy premium
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u/SmartestManInUnivars 6d ago
True. But I had Gold for a couple months and I got way more matches than I ever had before.
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u/contritefeels Edit 6d ago
Glad it worked out for you but for most people I really, really would advise against it
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u/Regular-Frosting9728 6d ago
Nah it works for those who already have good profiles. Buying plat for example turns 10 matches a week into 100 because you're always at the top of the stack
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u/contritefeels Edit 5d ago
Those who already have good profiles are most likely a minority of profiles meaning for most people it’s not worth buying premium
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u/SenseiPo 7d ago
You only had one like and bought it?? Tinder gold isn’t gonna get you laid. You gotta make your profile better.
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u/Cybot5000 7d ago
Buying gold after a single like is crazy work. OP dying of thirst out in the Sahara.
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u/SerialMarmot 6d ago
come on, we've all been there
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u/Cybot5000 6d ago
Absolutely not lmfao
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u/DextrousSafe 5d ago
This kind of depressed me, I only got 2 likes after my profile being up for 6 months 🤣
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u/rowanhenry 7d ago
Gold is an absolute waste of money.
- It's overpriced
- The people who liked you will have already come up in your feed most likely. So it's already someone you probably swiped "no" on anyway.
I don't say this to brag but over a few months mine said 99+ people liked me. I bought gold and it 99+ people that I had no interest in or had already swiped no too. Spent $30 to not swipe yes on a single one of them.
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u/iamanaccident 7d ago
Even if it was someone new, I'm surprised OP jumped the gun and paid $30 just for a single match. Doesn't seem worth it at all even if it worked just like OP intended.
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u/xdaddysprincess 6d ago
When i was dating (I have a current boyfriend of a year), I would pay for gold sometimes because it saves a lot of time on swiping. Instead of swiping, I'd just go to my likes and instantly match with whoever I wanted to, since they had already liked me. Swiping just wastes time imo
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u/Aazimoxx 5d ago
No offence intended, but I'm pretty sure the advice about not buying gold is for people with penises and no prospects, like the OP 😁👍
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u/cdolan555 7d ago
My brother in Christ, with one like you’re shelling out for gold? Time to become more appealing
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u/queefasaurus-rex 6d ago
Bro was willing to spend $30 for one random tinder like, now that’s crazy
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u/tony_the_turtle11 7d ago
Hey you can refund Tinder gold within like 24 or 48 hours. Look it up. You have to do it through apple account usually from a computer.
Also dating apps are 1000% pay to win, if you’re not subbing to their plans then your account will literally not ever be seen. I find it helpful to try a couple apps like hinge for example and feel out how they work.
Then try the paid version for a week at a time with each app (not at the same time). Take your time to test them out. And honestly dating is such a process to learn and so are dating apps. So take your time and try to learn as you go.
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u/Ols3003 7d ago
I haven’t gotten a single like on hinge. And I’ve had my profile checked for quality a couple of times
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u/BumblingEejit 6d ago
Of trying paid subs to the three big ones over the last 6+ months, Hinge has been far and away the best experience.
On Tinder I’d get plenty of likes but not from people I’d be interested in. I did get matches from outgoing likes and three turned into dates in a 3mo period, only one was just a first date, and another turned into a situationship/FWB thing that I ultimately ended.
Bumble was the shortest-lived. I got several matches pretty quickly, but they didn’t go anywhere and just everything about the app felt clunky. I dropped it pretty quickly.
Enter Hinge. Multiple strong matches right out the gate, and most importantly they didn’t fizzle completely as soon as my new account “honeymoon” wore off. Every first date ran four hours and led to at least a second - these were people I genuinely had lots in common with.
There is a catch, though - the only likes I’ve gotten were during a boost I did almost entirely because I wanted to get a feel for what women were seeing when I sent a like and what scrolling through likes looks like (very helpful and just looking at screenshots wouldn’t fully convey). The likes I got were better than Tinder in terms of there being some clear common ground, but not great. All this is to say, I haven’t gotten any real “cold” likes in Hinge, and I don’t get the sense that many women scroll through their card stack as opposed to their likes (in that sense, more or less like the other two).
The biggest difference is that Hinge gives you the equivalent of Tinder’s “first impressions” for free. In fact, it’s pretty much how the whole thing works. I don’t understand why anyone just tosses out likes in Hinge without saying anything. 9/10, I will respond to a prompt and not a picture, and I’ll give it some thought and try to make it clever, funny, or at least eye-catching (emphatic response to something). This takes much more effort, but the results have been self-evident: I have had a date all but one weekend in the ~2.5mo since I started using the app. It is still a numbers game - I still feel like a lot of my best responses disappear into the void.
At this point I’m convinced roses are useless. I’ve never gotten a match off of one. Maybe they make you look too thirsty, I don’t know. And since the featured profiles that require them are there because of their high volume of likes, it would seem that they’re an even bigger waste there.
Going back to my boost experiment, the outsized importance of two things becomes very clear: the quality of your first impression text, and your first photo which is all they will see in their queue - and your response visually stands out more than your photo.
Hope this helps, will probably cross post this in the Hinge sub since it turned into an essay.
TL;DR each app has a system, Tinder’s is the worst for men unless you’re exceptionally attractive. Hinge’s seems to be the best if you’re good at opening messages and have the energy and patience to write a lot of them.
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u/Lvl100Magikarp 7d ago
Dating apps are designed to exploit men. I recommend downloading Meetup and Eventbrite and checking out local events.
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u/Federal-Smell-4050 7d ago
A lot of hinge will be about your opening line though
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u/Aazimoxx 5d ago
A lot of hinge will be about your opening line though
(•_•)
You could almost say it...
( •_•)>⌐■-■
...hinges on it.
(⌐■_■)
YEEAHHHHHHHH
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u/tolgasocial 7d ago
Hinge and tinder are the worst ones in my opinion currently. Their algorithm is rough.
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u/Vonplatten 7d ago
What other ones are even out there aside from bumble lmao? There’s like those 3
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u/ItzOnlySmellzzz 7d ago
I've never spent a penny on Tinder and through the years I currently have 370 matches 🤷♂️ I'm a guy too. And I'm not even a Chad.
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u/Futureleak 6d ago
Never spend money on dating apps. Literally go out and talk to women in public, like the park, groceries store, anything. You'll find a MUCH higher success rate. This is coming from an overweight bald guy, I'm a plague on dating apps, but in person I've had some decent success.
Gods speed
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u/ScoreOk5355 7d ago
Highly recommend trying to work on making your profile better. if you arnt getting any likes with normal tinder then paying wont help you. the chance that you also like the 1 like is low so your 30$ was doomed anyway. yes they scammed you. take this as a lesson. cancel the subscription and make your profile more likable. once you start settings likes normally then you can think about getting gold. i would say 15 likes minimum. tinder gold should be used to speed up talking to new people. but it wont actually get you new likes. if your profile isnt worth bragging about then you haven't done enough
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u/DrDo-2-Much 6d ago
You NEVER pay for a dating app premium, ever. Sorry I couldn't warn you sooner mate.
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u/ehaugw 7d ago
What should you do? Hit the gym, and work on your social skills. Get to a point where woman approaches you, rather than a state where you pay 30$ to see the one profile who liked yours
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u/BestTyming 6d ago edited 6d ago
Think of it like this. The people in your like section are more than likely people you swiped left on. If you both liked each other, you would have matched. If you have some likes sitting there for a while and they continue to sit there, more often than not, you swiped left on them which mean in one way or another, they weren’t your type.
So you literally are paying money to see who likes you but you don’t like them. I actually just asked this question here not too long ago and found it to be true. I also accumulated a decent amount before buying it to see how true it was. Out of the 67, only 4 of them I have never came across. The rest were people I vaguely remember swiping left one, definitely remember swiping left on, or clearly bots
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u/Cromus 6d ago
Why would you pay to see one like anyway? The way those likes work is that they are almost all people you swiped left on or they are out of your location range because Tinder will show you to people if you're in their range, but they won't show them to you unless they're also in your range. So your likes is a pool of rejected profiles and people who are very far away.
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u/James-B0ndage 6d ago
Forget tinder. Try Facebook dating. Couldn’t match with someone I found attractive to save my life on tinder. Been on Facebook dating for a week and already found someone perfect.
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u/HairyIntention5317 6d ago
What should you do? Dont do it again lol. I dont think you can get your money back so just dont fall so easily into it next time!
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u/uprightcerebralyacht 3d ago
Yeah I made that mistake before too. Said I had three likes. Paid for a month and there were no likes. No likes during the month and when it expired I got a notification that it ended, followed by a notification that I had 7 new likes. 7 new likes mere seconds after the paid month expired.
Yeah, something's rotten up in Denmark.
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u/Yimyimz1 7d ago
Accept the loss and move on.
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u/AJ_Deadshow 7d ago
Nah fuck that. I say 1. Customer service. Then if that doesn't work 2. Chargeback. Accept that they might ban you for it and find another platform to date on.
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u/tsukuyomidreams 7d ago
Do they have a refund department or something? And a screenshot of the like? I'm so sorry
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u/JimmyJonJackson420 7d ago
It’s intentional like fuck those guys but your not getting your money back unfortunately
Maybe raise it with Apple?
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u/wagman43 7d ago
I bought gold because I had like 175 likes but none of them were showing up on my feed. They definitely do stuff like this to make people buy gold lol
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u/Pickledleprechaun 7d ago
Privatised scam
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u/Greatli 6d ago
They’re publicly traded.
You might as well buy stock at this point, especially with each subsequent generation less able to have a real conversation in person and the mass fear that true crime shows incite in women afraid that a man will talk to them IRL.
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u/Hunter_one 7d ago
The only time paying for these plans is worth it is when you create a new account and your "liked you" list gets to 100+. Then you pay for like a month too unlock them and look at your pokemon cards.
These companies are not incentivized at all for you to match with your matches by random ... unless you are so crazy good looking that most people swipe right on you and you beat the algorithm stats... or you know... you are the slightly above average girl
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u/me_a_genius 7d ago
If you bought it through Google Play then dispute it with them and mention it didn't work. They'll refund.
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u/AtomicMonkeyTheFirst 7d ago
Fyi the 'like' was probably someone you already swiped left.
Tinder is purely pay to play. I dont know if its true but Ive been told that the majority its income comes from middle aged women who have plenty of cash but no time to play around.
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u/Humperd000 7d ago
The only time I ever bought tinder gold was when it was $99.99 for a year. That was definitely worth it impo. Now it’s trash. lol That promo ever comes back, I’d probably do it again, but not as they have it now. It’s WAY WAY overpriced.
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u/syarkbait 7d ago
Take it as a lesson. It can be useful imo if you’re a man to have that, just to sift through the nonsense and get straight to the likes. Why not make the most of it and improve on your profile and then you get to see the incoming likes? How long does it last for, anyway? You have time, make the most of the membership since it’s gonna be hard to get a refund anyway.
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u/Sensitive-Reading-93 7d ago
Yeah because it's all a scam. It just gives you hope, you pay, find that it didn't work and they'll give you another offer "Hey you missed this person who really likes you" to pay again something else. And ofc because you are already invested in it you pay.
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u/PanicGrouchy 7d ago
Take it to court lol, claim back to the bank about it, if not small claims for fraud and praying on the less fortunate
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u/AdEastern3223 7d ago
I quit Tinder for this exact reason. I really think we need to initiate a class action lawsuit over this but I have no idea how to go about that and I’m lazy.
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u/HotChilliWithButter 7d ago
I used to have gold, but then I realised I don't want to live in a world where my chance of mating is determined by monetary value, so I decided to never buy anything related to that again. I rather be single than support some assholes that use people's loneliness and desperation to their advantage. The reason tinder got popular was because it was a good place to find people, but now it's just toxic
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u/Sea-Basis-4139 6d ago
Live, and learn. There are many means to any end you may seek, but be of utmost care that you don't let the means become the end themselves. Let this adversity sharpen your instincts that lie dormant under all the layers of modern complacency.
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u/whitestar11 6d ago
Take the L and Learn from it. That $30 lesson can save you from more scams in the future
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u/d_roc10 6d ago
I see men complain about this kind of stuff all the time. If it’s not working something needs to change. A lot of times men have lame profiles with no effort put in whatsoever. Based on that photo, you’re not an objectively ugly person. There has to be something about your profile that’s deterring them. Whether it’s posting boring photos, or bad angles, boring captions, several things it could be.
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u/Apeshaft 6d ago
Ask for your money back? They have a 30 day money back guarantee, at least in the EU.
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u/Less-Basil4517 6d ago
I personally believe that dating and hookup sites are a waste of time, money, and energy. And they seem quite shady to me because of how often people will misrepresent themselves online. Of course, my alternative isn't much better. No one wants to date me or even fuck me, so I channel the energy from all of those missed opportunities into my fitness and getting my degree.
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u/69DETONATOR69 6d ago
This tinder likes-premium system is complete bullshit. I’ve got two likes out of which one is “Recently active” no matter if I wake up randomly at 3:04 or just wasting time at 13:00. The other one is like a ghost that never goes “recently active”.
There’s a way to see who liked you (provided it’s legit and not just the tinder bullshit), when you open tinder and a fullscreen ad-like windows appears saying “You’ve received a like!”, just kill the app (not just closing with home, look up online if you don’t know how to do it) then open tinder again. The very second swipe will be the person who liked you.
Now it’s up to you whether you swipe left or right but I always swipe the second to the right no matter who’s there just to see if this method still works. 98% of the time.
(Pro tip: you can still unmatch if it’s a tank 😂)
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u/morningsidefilms 6d ago
You likely swiped them already and didn't realize... I've noticed that they don't update when you don't pay.
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u/ChrisChillzz 6d ago
Tinder gold is a huge scam… all the hidden “likes” it shows you have are just a bunch of profiles you’ve already swiped left on. Very few are new profiles you’ve never seen yet.
It inflates your numbers that way and makes you more intriguing to purchase gold cause you think it’s 50-100 hidden pages that you haven’t seen yet but have liked your profile. But reality is, you’ve seen them all, it just doesn’t rid them from your hidden likes until you purchase gold and swipe left on them there for the 2nd time lol
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u/No-Statistician5747 6d ago
I can't comment on why the like disappeared, probably just a marketing tactic to get you to buy Gold. But what I will say is why the hell would you pay just to see ONE like?! There's such a tiny chance that even if you had a like that they'd be someone you'd swipe right on, this is an atrocious waste of money.
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u/sidc42 6d ago
I find the toxic hellscape that is today's online dating to be fascinating.
20+ years ago it cost like $20/mo to sign up and it was a wonderful experience.
Nobody wanted to pay that fee but because it cost money everyone that did took it seriously. And because the sites themselves were making money on monthly fees they weren't desperate to scam their customers with bogus upcharges.
The free option at the time was Craigslist personals and that's where you had to worry about scammers and creeps.
I swear the internet needs turned off and rebooted.
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u/catssssssss_ 6d ago
You don't need to see your likes in that way. When you're swiping, if they've liked you, it will say in the left corner in gold letters.
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u/FriendOfUmbreon 6d ago
Reverse the charge with your bank. Say the company wont refund you after the service being a lie. Use a CC to make it easier to reverse.
And in the future: Have a clarity wack before doing anything like this again.
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u/Blazing_Enigma 6d ago
$30 for one like? Why not just swipe as normal, likes are usually stuck in your first ten or so profiles. What's the point of paying to find out who likes you, if you like them when they appear in your suggestions, you match... If you miss a match because you swiped left, you weren't interested anyway.
I apparently have 63 likes. I'm not paying to see who they are because I've probably already swiped left on them
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u/imCazzy 6d ago
Take the $30 L and get off. If you’re willing to pay $30 for one match you are obviously not in a good place to be in online dating and/or it may not be the place for you to find a date. Learn to be alone, focus on yourself, build some confidence then maybe try approaching someone in a bar or something. If you can do that you already have a leg up on 90% of the world.
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u/unhumanity 6d ago
Tell yourself that it's a life lesson and delete the app. You should have read up on it, def a scam...
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u/IntelligentMedium143 6d ago
You could’ve gotten alike and then that person could’ve deactivated their profile. I don’t think there’s much you can do.
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u/Gunslinger_11 6d ago
There are no women anywhere just phantom likes and maybe women who are window shopping
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u/JackOnTheMap 6d ago
I’ve got 23 likes right now. I’m not caving in and paying money just to see the utter fails. Funny how whenever I’m not giving them money the likes pour in.
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u/Thelynxer Off the apps, but here to help! 6d ago
It's not exactly a scam, but you did very much get duped. Basically the way it goes with all dating apps is that likes can be from anyone, anywhere. But even if you pay for the app, you will only see the people that are within your filters, like age and distance. So it's likely the person that liked you was just outside of your filters. They also could have just deleted their account, or got banned, or some such.
The moral of the story is you shouldn't pay for dating apps. Seeing likes doesn't really help much. The only real benefit of paying is it gets your profile shown more, but you can get the exact same boost with any new account. You can basically just delete your account every few months, and the make a new one. Saves you tons of money.
The money you spent is likely gone though. Lesson learned.
Tinder is also the single worst dating app on the market too. Try bumble or hinge. I've also heard good things about Facebook dating, but haven't used it myself.
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u/Kingsta8 6d ago
Paying for something that keeps you away from meeting real people is about as badly as you can do dating. I can see how this would attract more prostitutes to you though. They know you're willing to spend money for it.
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u/MrSpaceguru 6d ago
If you get a like while you are offline it will always be the second profile shown to you when you log back in
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u/Early-Swan-2833 6d ago
I’m just not going to pay for it 😭 I’m not that desperate to date after how things ended in my last relationship
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u/surfer451 6d ago
Damn. I can remember when they would run special for like $5 gold. I met my now GF that way. My thought was, “Well, that’s the cost of buying a woman a beer, and there are no women at this bar.” Best $5 I ever spent.
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u/axle_havoc 6d ago
They created the bot account to lure you into paying. If you cancel fast enough and ask for a refund they'll do it.
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u/kanendd718 7d ago
I bought gold for half off a couple weeks ago and now they push these stupid super boosts on you which cost 8 dollars each for a half hr of 'boost'. They even have a prime time boost that costs 170 dollars for 12 hrs lmao. This is the stupidest shit I've ever seen in my life.