Former dating app employees reveal their weirdest work secrets

From companies catfishing as women to keep men's accounts active to a full-time career dedicated to swiping through inappropriate d*ck pics all day, here are nine first-hand accounts from those who have worked on the inside:

Software bugs sending messages from the deceased

An unfortunate bug prompted a dead person to re-like their partner's profile.

The employee explained: "A couple met on the dating app I worked on. Unfortunately, the man passed away, and the lady returned to the app where they met for remembrance.

"One day, a bug in the system made some profile likes to be sent again after months, and she received one from her deceased boyfriend."

An awkward company suggestion

A content creator for a hook-up site was paid "between 11p and 18p per message" to respond to user messages.

During her career, she had spoken with many older men who had lost their wives.

She said her career finally ended "when a guy told me his dad had died that morning, and he wouldn't be around for a while.

"I got reviewed for my reply, which was 'I'm really sorry for your loss, if you need to talk, I'll be here for you".

The company reviewed the message and suggested she should have responded: "Do you not care about me? I have needs too".

On that note, she decided it was time to leave the company.

Swiping through nudes all-day

One person's 9 to 5 consisted of flagging inappropriate photos all day.

"[The] JOB was to look at d*ck pics all day. Five days a week. That’s all. No stat. Just a weird f**king job," they said.

And the job role seems pretty common, too.

Another added: "Yeah, I’ve done that job... you get used to it pretty quickly.

"So many d*cks and buttholes... every shape, size and colour imaginable.

"I used to ‘monitor’ chat logs too; that’s where the real f**ked up sh*t is."

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Companies catfishing users to draw men in

One Redditor worked at a dating site in the early 2000s, and was required "to pretend to be a woman and message male customers just as their accounts were going to expire."

Why – you may ask?

Apparently, it would encourage men to renew their subscriptions. "Once they renewed, he would ghost them," he added.

Requests from the police

One Redditor claimed they received "so many requests for information from the police that we had an informal system with them, to save them from wasting time getting warrants for information about people who we didn't have data on."

They would ask about a particular name, email address, or other identifiers.

More fake profiles from "models"

One employee claimed their dating site was "packed with photos of hot women who didn't exist", which turned out to be purchased professional photos with "tons of different bios".

They joked: "It was kind of funny because the same woman might be a surgeon in one profile and 'I just want to stay home and make babies in another."

Affair sites filled with adult workers

A former employee of an affair-dating website said the platform had "almost no real women" looking for dates. Instead, the data showed it was mostly "adult workers looking for clients."

An intern claimed the job "turned them off PR for good."

They said: "Every time I tried to kinda hint and acknowledge how the premise of their website is f**ked, they’d actually act confused and genuinely seemed to not understand what the big deal was."

Some people try to use platforms to sell drugs

Many users claimed they were forced to ban people for selling drugs.

They said: "We would get a lot of emails of 'why am I banned?' then go to their profile and will say 'HMU for that 🌳'."

Users often lie about the basic things

A former data analyst at a dating app firm suggested, "Women frequently lie about their age and weight, and men lie about their height and salary."

They added: "Also, it’s a big problem that women are inundated with DMs while most men get none."

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