New US law will make dating apps warn users who chatted with banned scammers
Signed on 20 October, the Romance Scam Prevention Act gives US dating services a year to start alerting anyone who exchanged messages with an account later banned for fraud, usually within 24 hours.
If a dating app bans an account for fraud, everyone who swapped messages with that account will soon have to be told. President Donald Trump signed the Romance Scam Prevention Act (H.R. 2481) into law on 20 October 2026, after the bill passed the Senate unanimously in late September.
The bipartisan measure was introduced in the House by Representative David Valadao and backed in the Senate by Marsha Blackburn and John Hickenlooper. According to American Banker and the ICIJ, it takes effect one year after signing, in October 2027.
What dating apps will have to send
The obligation is narrow but concrete. Once a service bans an account for fraud, it must notify every user who received a message from it, generally within 24 hours of the ban. The notice has to:
- identify the banned profile and say when the user last messaged it;
- warn that the person may have been using a false identity or trying to defraud members;
- advise users never to send money or financial details to anyone they met on the service;
- point to fraud-prevention resources and customer-service contacts.
American Banker reports that the alert can go out by email or text, so it can still reach someone whose conversation has already moved to WhatsApp or another platform, a classic step in romance fraud. There is no cut-off for how long ago the messages were exchanged.
Why Washington acted now
Losses reported to the Federal Trade Commission hit a record of about $1.5bn in 2025, up 22% on 2024, from more than 70,000 reports. Nearly 60% of victims who reported a loss said the scam began on social media rather than a dating app, a reminder that the law covers only part of the problem.
Pressure on the biggest operator has also grown. A report released on 13 October by Senator Maggie Hassan found that Tinder had gone years without updating most of its scam-detection models as of late 2025, according to American Banker. Match Group, which owns Tinder and Hinge, says it has significantly expanded its anti-scam work and welcomes “a national standard built on existing protections”. The Congressional Budget Office noted that most large dating services already send similar notices.
What the law does not do
It does not require anyone to refund victims. It does not apply to social networks in general. Services that comply get a safe harbour from lawsuits over the notices, and the federal rule overrides state laws on the same subject in Vermont, Arizona, Utah and New York; those state rules only covered users who had replied to a scammer. Enforcement sits with the FTC and state attorneys general.
What it means for people using dating apps
For US users, a warning after the fact is useful but late: by the time an account is banned, money may already be gone. The basics still do most of the work. Be wary of anyone who pushes to leave the app quickly, avoids video calls or brings up money, crypto or an “investment opportunity”. UK users are not covered by the new law, although the major apps tend to roll safety features out across markets.
For the numbers behind the trend, see our romance scam statistics, and before meeting a match, our first date safety guide.
Sources
- President Signs Congressman Valadao’s Romance Scam Prevention Act into Law (Office of Rep. David Valadao, 21 October 2026)
- New law requires dating apps to help block romance scams (American Banker, 22 October 2026)
- New US law requires dating apps to include warnings on romance scams (ICIJ, 21 October 2026)
Cover photo: Alexander Grey / Unsplash
