How We Keep Bots Out of Pretty Good Dating

If you've used any major dating app, you've probably experienced it: matching with someone attractive, starting a conversation, and then... "Hey babe, add me on Telegram" or "I have an amazing crypto investment opportunity for you."

It's exhausting. And judging by app store reviews, you're not alone.

The Bot Problem Is Everywhere

Take a look at what real users are saying about popular dating apps:

Real reviews from popular dating apps. The pattern is always the same.

The pattern is always the same: fake profiles, scripted messages, and attempts to move you off-platform to scam you. Whether it's romance scams, crypto schemes, or just plain spam, bots have made online dating feel like a minefield.

So why don't these apps do anything about it?

The cynical answer: bots inflate their user numbers. A dating app can claim "10 million users!" without mentioning that half of them are fake. More "users" means more downloads, more investor money, and more people paying for premium features trying to get matches.

We're Building Something Different

At Pretty Good Dating, we're not trying to be the biggest dating app. We're trying to be the most genuine one. That means every single profile needs to be a real person actually looking for a relationship.

Here's how we make that happen:

1. Every Account Is Manually Reviewed

Before you can browse profiles or send messages, a real human reviews your registration. Yes, this takes time. Yes, it doesn't scale to millions of users overnight. But it means we catch fake accounts before they ever interact with anyone.

Bots need volume to be profitable. When every account requires human approval, we're simply not worth their time.

2. Invisible Bot Detection

Even before the manual review, we have automated systems watching for bot behavior:

• Honeypot traps — Hidden form fields that real users never see, but bots fill out automatically
• Timing analysis — Humans take time to fill out forms. Bots don't. We notice.
• Pattern recognition — Multiple accounts from the same location? Suspicious registration patterns? We flag it.

These checks happen invisibly. Real users never notice them. Bots get caught.

3. Contact Sharing Is Built Into the App

One of the biggest red flags on dating apps is when someone immediately tries to move you to WhatsApp, Telegram, or asks for your phone number. Scammers do this because once you're off-platform, no one can protect you.

We solve this differently: you can't share contact info in messages.

If you try to type a phone number, email, or social media handle in a message, you'll see a warning. Instead, we have a dedicated Contact Sharing feature where both people agree to exchange verified contact information when they're ready.

This means:

• Scammers can't harvest your phone number or email
• You stay protected until you're genuinely ready to connect off-platform
• When you do share contacts, you know the other person is verified too

4. Rate Limits That Stop Spam

Bots and scammers rely on volume. Send 1,000 messages, maybe 10 people fall for it. That math doesn't work here:

• 5 new conversations per day maximum
• 5 chat requests per day maximum
• Unlimited replies in existing conversations

Real people looking for real relationships don't need to message hundreds of people a day. Scammers do. Our limits make the scam business model impossible.

5. Spam Pattern Detection

We maintain a database of known scam phrases and patterns. Messages mentioning "crypto," "investment opportunities," "sugar daddy," or asking you to contact them on other platforms are automatically flagged.

Our team reviews these flags and takes action. Scammers get banned. Their tactics get added to our detection system. The cycle continues.

The Tradeoff We're Making

Let's be honest: all of this makes Pretty Good Dating slower to join and more restrictive to use than Tinder or Bumble.

That's intentional.

We'd rather have 1,000 real users who are genuinely looking for relationships than 100,000 profiles where half are bots and the other half are people swiping mindlessly.

If you want the dopamine hit of endless swiping, we're probably not for you. But if you're tired of wading through fake profiles and scam messages to find someone real, you're exactly who we built this for.

Is It Perfect?

No system is 100% bot-proof. Sophisticated scammers with real photos and patient approaches can sometimes slip through. But we're watching, learning, and constantly improving our defenses.

More importantly, we care about this problem. We're not incentivized to look the other way because bots inflate our metrics. Every fake account that gets through is a failure we take personally.

Try It Yourself

Tired of bots? Tired of scams? Tired of dating apps that don't seem to care?

Give Pretty Good Dating a try. Yes, there's an approval process. Yes, there are limits on messaging. But when you match with someone here, you can trust they're real.

And in online dating, that trust is everything.

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