Delhi cafes ‘hiring girls’ to scam customers, says Bumble user conned out of Rs 15,000

A Delhi man was scammed out of more than Rs 15,000 after going on a date with a woman he met on the dating app Bumble. In a post shared on X (formerly Twitter), Archit Gupta revealed how he paid a hugely inflated bill at the Rajouri Garden restaurant where he met the woman for a date. He said the restaurant was working in collusion with the woman to attract unwary customers who were then made to pay a huge bill that far exceeded the actual value of the items they ordered.

This scam is not a new one. Social media and Reddit forums are full of accounts from men who were scammed out of their money after meeting women through dating apps like Bumble and Tinder. The modus operandi of these scams is simple – the woman insists on meeting the man at a specific restaurant only. Once there, she orders food and, usually, some alcohol, before making some excuse and leaving. The man is then stuck with an inflated bill.

In Gupta’s case, the bill amounted to Rs 15,886 for a Red Bull, a hookah, one shot of vodka, two to three glasses of wine, a plate of chicken tikka and a bottle of water.

In his account of the scam, Gupta, 25, said he met the girl named Divya Sharma on Bumble. She was likely operating under a fake name, he said. Sharma, or Aifya as her name appeared on Truecaller, asked Gupta to meet at a particular restaurant in the Rajouri Garden area of Delhi.
“She convinced me that she was looking for something meaningful. She took me to a bar, The Race Lounge and Bar. Despite not being convinced of the place, Aifya (her real name, as per Truecaller) insisted that I sit there,” he wrote.

“I was shocked after seeing the bill. I paid for the bill. They tapped my card four times as there was some issue with their machine,” he added.