Representative image for online dating.
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Men in Mumbai are falling prey to dating scams where they are left to pay hefty amount of bills at night clubs ranging from Rs 23,000 to Rs 61,000 after their date 'abruptly' leaves.
Deepika Narayan Bhardwaj shared the pictures on her X handle showing the bills of 'The Godfather Club' in Andheri West of Mumbai. The caption in the post mentioned that this scam is happening every day and around 10 men fall victim to the scam on daily basis.
The scam involves women connecting with the victims through dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, Happn and QuackQuack. They then lure the men for a meetup at the expensive nightclub.
After meeting up, the women order costly food items, and they 'abruptly' leave the club. The men then left alone are forced to pay the bill. The most common items ordered by the women were drinks, hookah and fireshot, the post revealed.
The post on X shows four bills totalling Rs 22,082, Rs 39,949, Rs 48,996 and Rs 61,743. All the bills are from the same club, called 'The Godfather'.
The post also says that the men are not shown the menu card before ordering the food. If they deny paying the bill, they were allegedly cornered by bouncers and threatened.
Deepika also mentioned in a thread post that many victims have filed cyber complaints and called the police to the spot; however, no action was taken.
The post has garnered over 4 million views and a flurry of comments.
"I know a friend who got scammed. Same way, maybe same place and I suppose same girl or some other. but this is happening all over Mumbai, pan-India," commented a user.
Another commented, "Scammers they should be behind bars I got looted for 55k."
"This is absolutely scary, imagine someone earning 50k asked to cough up 60k for something he didn't sign up for," commented a third.
Mumbai Police also commented under the post saying, "Thank you for sharing all the details with us. The senior officials of the concerned police station have been informed."
In another recent incident, a 53-year-old businessman from Navi Mumbai was allegedly cheated of Rs 33.3 lakh by a woman who befriended him on an online dating app.
The complainant alleged that a woman who identified herself as Pragati Dahiya contacted him on a dating app, and they met and communicated on WhatsApp between March and July 2024. The accused lured him into giving her Rs 33.3 lakh whenever they met in five months.
The accused failed to return the money, following which the man approached the police.
A similar case happened in Delhi months ago where a woman was arrested for 'trapping' men with whom she went on dates. She allegedly tricked men through online dating apps like Bumble and Tinder by taking them to 'shady' cafes and disappearing.