Key Takeaways

One of the most high-profile romance scam cases finally has a silver lining. 

Pernilla Sjöholm, who lost thousands of dollars to “The Tinder Swindler,” has co-founded IDfier, an identity verification system that promises to be 99.9% accurate in detecting authenticity on everything from e-commerce platforms to social media to dating apps. 

For Sjöholm, IDfier is a long-awaited solution to a problem that’s only getting worse. “Most of the verification tools used on dating apps do not go far enough,” she told DatingNews. 

She understands the importance of strong ID authentication systems better than most people. 

The Tinder Swindler, who went by the name of Simon Leviev, defrauded multiple women, including Sjöholm, out of hundreds of thousands of dollars between 2017 and 2019, according to the Times of Israel. Some believe that the total losses are upward of $10 million. 

Leviev — whose real name is Shimon Hayut — pretended to be the son of a well-known diamond mogul named Lev Leviev. He used forged drivers licenses and passports to jump from one identity to the other, including on dating apps like Tinder. 

“[Some ID verification systems] don’t require a liveness check, there is no KYC compliance, and they are easy to circumvent,” Sjöholm explained. “IDfier allows users to verify — with 99.9% accuracy — that the person they are speaking to is exactly who they say they are: not a bot, not a catfish.”

The increased presence of AI on dating apps, especially in the form of deepfakes, only makes it more difficult for the internet-literate and illiterate alike to deduce fact from fiction. 

Sjöholm told us that stronger safety measures are the least dating platforms can do to protect users from fraudsters. 

“I would like to see rules implemented that ensure dating apps must verify user identities before profiles can be created,” she said. She said she didn’t see the necessary products in the market, so she created one herself with the help of computer scientist Dr. Suejb Memeti, a Ph.D in computer science. 

Hayut is just one of countless fraudsters who make dating apps their playground. Too many of them go undetected, resulting in financial loss and substantial emotional damage, Sjöholm told The Next Web. “In my eyes, [a romance scam] shouldn’t just be viewed as a fraud or a scam; it should be viewed as emotional abuse towards a victim.” 

Sjöholm Urges Lawmakers to Crack Down on Scammers 

“The Tinder Swindler” became one of the most-watched Netflix documentaries of all time. But for every sympathetic viewer, there were critical ones, too. Sjöholm faced ridicule from people who couldn’t understand why she fell for Hayut’s schemes. “There’s so much hatred towards victims,” she told The Next Web. 

The U.S. Secret Service agrees: “Victims are often reluctant to report these scams because they are embarrassed and humiliated that they were duped and have become emotionally and financially invested in the relationship.” 

Sjöholm brought her goal of creating a safer online dating environment to life with IDfier. Now, she hopes IDfier, as well as her own story, will encourage lawmakers to take a tougher stance against fraudsters and catfish. 

“Using a fake identity online to defraud, harass, or cause emotional distress should be classified as a crime, globally,” she told us. “Online fraud is growing rapidly, and identity fraud is a large part of that.” 

The law should help victims recover from the emotional damage just as much as the financial damage, Sjöholm said. After all, it’s the emotional toll that often shames victims into silence, perpetuating the destructive cycle of fraud. 

“I would want regulation to reflect that wasting someone’s time can be incredibly emotionally destabilising,” she told us. “Just because someone hasn’t lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, it doesn’t mean that a distressing, stressful, and harmful experience hasn’t taken place.” 

With IDfier, Sjöholm has not only created a tool to prevent future victims of romance scams, but to help her reclaim her story.