When I was using dating apps to look for love, I used to hear about security breaches and hacking but I never thought it could happen to me. Unfortunately, it did, but it wasn’t a stranger who broke into my account—it was my ex.
- I downloaded a dating app after a breakup. I’d been single for a few months when I decided to get back in the game. I downloaded a dating app to see what was out there. I would have preferred meeting someone in person, but I was trying to get with the times and use the technology available to me.
- I started to notice weird things. After a few days of being on the dating app, I noticed that some of my matches wouldn’t show up. I just assumed that the app was being glitchy. Once, I even uninstalled and re-installed it in the hope that the problem would fix itself but it didn’t. Things actually got worse.
- Messages were being deleted. This was another strange thing that started to happen. When I introduced myself to someone I thought was cute or interesting, the message would disappear as if I’d never sent it at all. What the hell?
- Things weren’t adding up. One day, I sent a guy a message on the dating app and was relieved to find that it hadn’t been deleted. Whatever bug had been responsible for all that weirdness had obviously gone away… or so I thought. When he didn’t reply to my message, I started to fear that my stupid app wasn’t working again.
- He had some weird news for me. I sent him another message on the app even though I didn’t want to seem desperate and asked him if he’d got my message. To be sure he didn’t get the wrong idea, I explained that I was having problems with the app. He replied, saying that I’d told him I didn’t want to talk to him so he’d left me alone. I asked the guy for more details because I thought he was obviously making stuff up or just crazy (because everyone knows there are some crazy people on dating apps). But he had proof that he was willing to show me.
- He sent me a screenshot. In it, I could clearly see that I had sent him a message telling him I wasn’t interested and wanted him to leave me alone, but I definitely didn’t do that. Had my account been hacked? Was someone impersonating me? It was so freaky.
- Someone was using my account. It was just blocking people, sending messages to them to make them leave me alone… Ugh, it was too much. The guy who I’d supposedly told to leave me alone disappeared after that, probably thinking I was legit crazy, but I had bigger problems. I felt so creeped out about being hacked that I deleted my profile and uninstalled the dating app immediately. I even went so far as to change my social media and email passwords in case the hacker was sniffing around in other places.
- My ex go in touch. A day after I deleted my dating app profile, my ex sent me a text. It was definitely not something out of the blue because he asked me if I was enjoying meeting other people on a dating app. Oh hell no.
- That’s when I knew he’d hacked me. I confronted him about what he’d done. I phoned him immediately so that I could hear him answer my questions instead of taking time typing them. I could tell in his voice that he was guilty and I was so mad. I told him to leave me alone and never get in touch with me again. He denied being my hacker, but honestly, I knew that it was him.
- He’d dragged his heels during our breakup, so this wasn’t exactly surprising. I had ended things with him precisely because he was so controlling. Getting out of that relationship had taken me three weeks because he kept hanging on, so I wasn’t surprised that he would try to sabotage my efforts to move on. It was sick. Looking back, I should’ve reported him or done something, but I just wanted him to leave me alone. Thank goodness he did.
