Shimon Hayut, used Tinder to meet women, who he then conned money from. A spokesperson at Tinder confirms that Hayut has been banned from using the app. Photo / Netflix
In case you have lived in a cave for the last five years and have never heard the word "Tinder", it is arguably the world's number one dating app. The ground-breaking app created a whole new meaning for the words "swipe right" and brought millions of people together.
Tinder does
have a dark side, however, with tales of more minor dating misdemeanours such as "ghosting", to more bleak scenarios that have resulted in harm and misery. It is the story of one such misery-making man who is the focus of the new Netflix documentary film, The Tinder Swindler - and it has everyone talking.
The man, whose real name is Shimon Hayut, but is also known as Simon Leviev, swindled his Tinder matches out of millions of dollars, according to the documentary. On Friday, a spokesperson at Tinder confirmed that Hayut has been banned from using the app for some time.
"We banned Simon Leviev and any of his known aliases as soon as the story of his actions became public in 2019. He is permanently banned from Tinder. In the lead up to the release of the documentary, we conducted additional internal investigations and can confirm Simon Leviev is not active on Tinder under any of his known aliases.", Tinder confirmed in a statement.
The Netflix film tells the story of three women - Cecilie Fjellhoy, Pernilla Sjöholm and Ayleen Charlotte - all living in different parts of Europe, who were targeted by Hayut between 2018 and 2019.
