If you thought seeing a man holding a fish or indeed being ‘catfished’ were your biggest worries when swiping right, you were wrong. As a new Netflix film teaches us, the stakes have been raised when it comes to dating scams and the Tinder Swindler is a lesson in what, or who, to avoid on the internet.
In July 2021, Netflix scooped up the rights to this documentary about a notorious conman who used Tinder to lure women and hoodwink them out of millions. Now that it’s finally hit Aussie screens, here’s a look at what you can expect from it.
What’s the Tinder Swindler about?
![Netflix, Tinder Swindler](https://www.lifehacker.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2022/02/03/image004-1024x416.jpg)
Directed by Felicity Morris of Don’t F**k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer fame, the Tinder Swindler tells the story of Israeli wannabe playboy billionaire Shimon Hayut, who targeted Scandinavian women and convinced them to part with hundreds of thousands of dollars by pretending to be a Russian oligarch named Simon Leviev on Tinder.
“You’ll never ‘swipe right’ the same again after watching this new film premiering in February 2022 that tells the jaw-dropping story of a prolific conman who posed as a billionaire playboy on Tinder, and the women who set out to bring him down,” Netflix says.
As reports detail, Hayut convinced these women to take out lines of credit under their names. The doco tells the tale from the perspective of the women Hayut conned, following them as they uncover his true identity and bring him to justice.
The full synopsis of the Tinder Swindler documentary reads as follows:
Swipe, swipe, swipe… It’s not easy to find love online, so when Cecilie matches with a handsome billionaire playboy, she can’t quite believe it when he turns out to be the man of her dreams. But dreams aren’t reality and by the time she discovers this international businessman isn’t who he says he is, it’s too late. He’s taken her for everything.
Where this fairytale ends, a revenge thriller begins. Cecilie discovers his other targets and once they band together, they’re victims no more: THE TINDER SWINDLER meets his match. From the producers of ‘The Imposter’ and ‘Don’t F**k with Cats’, this riveting feature documentary follows as they uncover his true identity and fight to bring him to justice.
Hayut was imprisoned in December 2019 after he was found guilty in a plea bargain of defrauding the women he met online.
He served just five months of his 15-month jail sentence, reportedly as part of a program aimed at reducing the prison population amid fears of a coronavirus outbreak among inmates.
Tinder Swindler: trailer
If you want a sneak peek of what the Tinder Swindler story entails, check out the documentary’s trailer below.
When and where can I watch it in Australia?
Tinder Swindler premiered exclusively on Netflix on February 2, 2022. You can give it a watch here.
This article has been updated since its original publish date.