Sydney woman Bianca Boulden scammed by Tinder date fraud

When Bianca Boulden agreed to meet her Tinder match at a Bondi pub, she expected a handsome, 30-something-year-old to walk through the door. Instead, she was faced with a fraud.

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Laid back, good banter and effortlessly rugged — at first glance, the man on Tinder seemed to tick all Bianca Boulden’s boxes.

She swiped right and after a few days of lighthearted conversation, agreed to meet her match at a pub in Bondi in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs.

“He looked like a babe on his profile,” the brand and communications manager recalled.

“We were talking for a few days and he asked ‘do you want to get a drink and we can meet?’ I thought ‘yeah sounds good’.”

Bianca Boulden was scammed by her online dating match. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Late on a Friday afternoon, a few years ago, she parked on Campbell Parade, picked a table in the courtyard at Hotel Bondi and waited for her date.

Confident and charismatic, Ms Boulden was at ease making conversation with new people but her encounter that day left her speechless.

An older man with long, unkempt hair approached her with his hand stretched out, prompting Ms Boulden to do a double take.

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He introduced himself as the eligible bachelor she’d been talking to on Tinder for the past few days. He was at least 15 years older than the age on his profile.

“I said ‘no, I think you’re mistaken, I am waiting here for someone’,” she recalled.

“He said ‘yeah it’s me’.

“He was nothing like his photo. I am not talking maybe he has packed on a few kilos or cut his hair. This was a completely different person.”

There is now a term for the desperate and dateless using fake photographs to pass themselves off as someone more attractive — catfishing.

Ms Boulden and her Tinder match met at the Hotel Bondi. Picture: Dylan Robinson

The often cruel deceit is so prolific it inspired a reality TV show and a popular documentary.

Dating applications try to weed out impersonators by encouraging users to report and send screenshots of fake profiles as it’s impossible to verify the millions of profiles worldwide.

When Ms Boulden’s date went to the bar for a round of drinks, she plotted her escape.

“I just felt really scared, I had my car parked there but I didn’t want him to see what car I was in,” she said.

The fact the man failed to acknowledge he had used someone else’s photos was as unsettling as the deceit itself.

Ms Boulden slipped out the side entrance and ran to a taxi rank.

“I took a taxi up to my house up the road, left my car and then I think I had 18 missed calls,” she said.

“He kept calling and calling.

“To me it was like the guy had never gone on a date in his entire life and used someone else’s photos to get a date. “

The frightening experience put her off Tinder for about six months.

She now uses dating apps like Bumble and Hinge but has tailored her own verification process to ensure the men she speaks with are who they claim to be.

Ms Boulden’s Instagram account.

Ms Boulden discovered a stranger had ripped off her photographs to create a fake Instagram and Tinder profile.

She’ll ask for a last name and check the details against other social media profiles, like LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.

“To be honest I don’t really go on dates with people that I don’t have a mutual friends with,” she said.

In a bizarre twist, Ms Boulden became the unwitting victim of catfishing again this year.

A friend alerted her to fake Instagram and Tinder profiles, plastered with her photographs, that were used under the name “Nina Perry”.

“I got in contact with Instagram and had to send a photo of my ID and they shut it down,” she said.

Originally published as Sydney woman Bianca Boulden scammed by Tinder date fraud