I've been on Tinder off and on for about five years and in that time have seen my share of scammers. In the beginning it was super obvious - the scammers' profiles would have pictures from a supermodel photoshoot, and if you matched with one, they would immediately start with the spam messages. Then it got a little more sophisticated over the years - the profiles started to look more real, and the spam bot could exchange a few normalish messages with you before the spam started. But it wasn't something I'd ever fall for.

But I just had something happen that I could have easily fallen for and I have to warn you guys about. Here's how it went down: a couple days ago, I matched with a girl on Tinder. She was a super attractive girl, but her pictures looked like normal iPhone pictures, and her profile was filled out with work info, school info, and a brief bio plus a link to her Instagram. In other words, it looked just like any other Tinder profile you'd see. I went to check out her Instagram and it matched with what her Tinder profile said in terms of work, school, and location (her photos were set to private so unfortunately I didn't get to see any of them to verify).

Anyways, I messaged her on Tinder and we had some pretty typical Tinder conversation for a day or two. Probably about five or six messages back and forth each. During those messages, she mentioned that she was a real estate agent (matched with what her profile said), that she went to college in Boston (also matched her profile), and that she was visiting my city for work from out of town (also matched).

After a few messages I asked her out for a drink and asked for her number to make plans. She said yes to the drink, but that she prefers Skype and asked if we could message on there. Normally this would be a red flag, but she said she was from Argentina (which matched with her Tinder and Instagram profiles) so I figured that her phone didn't work in the US and/or Skype is still super popular in Argentina.

So we're messaging on Skype and after a few messages I try to finalize plans for the date that we had talked about. She says that sounds good but asks if we can can do a voice chat on Skype first. This isn't typical but it's happened once before, so I didn't think much of it. Plus she made a joke about wanting to see if I spoke Spanish, so I didn't have any problem with it.

As soon as we start talking, I notice something is weird. She's talking in a whisper, kind of a cross between trying to sound sexy and just talking in a quiet voice. After we've been talking for a few minutes I ask her about it and she says it's because she's sharing an apartment with a colleague who's traveling with her and doesn't want to wake her up. A little unusual, but nothing too crazy.

Also her attitude was a little strange. Again, nothing that obviously indicated she was a scammer, but she was just a little bit too forward. She kept mentioning how she was excited to meet me, how she enjoyed talking to me, etc. At this point, I knew something was up, but I didn't know what. Her behavior was a bit odd, but she knew things about my city that made me think she was actually here visiting. I was thinking maybe she was an escort looking for clients or she was looking for a sugar daddy. I'm not interested in either of those at the moment, so I told her it was getting late and I needed to get to sleep.

Before we hung up, she asked if we could video chat for a minute. I was suspicious, but more out of curiosity than anything, I accepted. When the video camera comes on, she's standing at an angle where I can only see her lower torso and upper legs and she's in her underwear doing a striptease. By this point I'm pretty sure she must be an escort, so I say I have to go and hang up the call. She immediately messages me back and asks me to call her again but to stand up and point the camera at my face. When I don't answer her for a few minutes she messages me again on Tinder asking me to call her back.

I had no idea what was going on, so I did a quick Google search, and it sounds like I was almost a victim of a blackmail scam. Apparently the goal is to get a video of a guys face plus a video of them masturbating, and then the scammer threatens to send it to your social media contacts if you don't pay them.

I'm usually pretty good about noticing this kind of stuff, but this scam was completely believable and professional. I'll be honest, if I had been hornier, there's a chance I would have fallen for it. So be on the lookout next time a girl from a dating app, however real she seems, wants to use Skype.

TL;DR - Sykpe-based Tinder scams are incredibly realistic. Be careful out there.