You’ve probably got at least one story. Maybe you chatted with someone for weeks before they asked for money. Maybe you showed up to a date and the person looked nothing like their photos. Maybe you matched with someone whose entire personality was just a bot trying to get you to click a sketchy link. If you’ve been on dating apps for more than a month, you’ve run into some version of this.
The numbers back up what most users already know. Studies suggest anywhere from 10 to 30 percent of dating profiles are fake or misleading. That’s not a small problem. It’s anywhere from one in ten to one in three people you’re swiping on. And the apps themselves haven’t exactly rushed to fix it. Why would they? More profiles mean more swipes, more engagement, more time you spend on the platform. Fake or real, it all feeds the algorithm.
HundRoses, a dating platform launching for Canadian and American users, is building its entire approach around addressing this specific mess. The concept is simple: if you want to send messages, you need to verify your identity. Just browsing? No verification needed. But the moment you try to actually connect with someone, you’ve got to prove you’re real.
It’s not a perfect solution. Verification can mean different things. Government ID, phone number, photo confirmation, social media linking. The level of proof matters, and HundRoses hasn’t detailed exactly what their process involves yet. But the principle makes sense. Most catfishers and scammers aren’t going to jump through verification hoops when easier targets exist on platforms that don’t require it.
What’s interesting is how this flips the usual dating app model. Typically, these platforms want to reduce friction at every step. Make it as easy as possible to sign up, swipe, match, message. The thinking goes that any barrier means fewer users, and fewer users means less money. HundRoses is betting that for people tired of wasting time on fake profiles, a small barrier to entry isn’t a dealbreaker. It’s actually a feature.
The timing matters too. Romance scams have gotten more sophisticated and more common. The FTC reported that Americans lost over $1.3 billion to romance fraud in 2022, and that number keeps climbing. These aren’t just lonely people getting duped. Scammers are good at what they do. They build trust over time, they’re patient, and they know exactly which emotional buttons to push. A verification requirement won’t stop all of them, but it’ll definitely slow them down.
There’s also the less dramatic but equally frustrating problem of people just lying. Photos from five years ago, heights that are optimistic at best, relationship status that’s conveniently vague. Verification doesn’t fix dishonesty, but it does create one layer of accountability. If your profile is tied to actual proof of who you are, you’re probably less likely to completely fabricate your identity.
Here’s what HundRoses gets right. People are already exhausted from dealing with fake profiles and wasted conversations. That’s not speculation, it’s the reality for anyone who’s spent time on dating apps. A smaller pool of verified users actually sounds better than an endless stream of profiles you can’t trust. Quality over quantity isn’t just marketing talk when you’ve had to spot three scammers in one week.
The platform is also entering a market where almost every major competitor is owned by Match Group. That means less innovation and fewer incentives to actually solve user problems. There’s clearly room for alternatives, especially ones built around basic safety features that should’ve been standard years ago. HundRoses is filling a gap that’s been sitting there waiting.
The bigger point is this: dating apps have normalized an experience where you assume people are lying until proven otherwise. You reverse image search their photos, you Google their phone number, you ask for their Instagram to verify they’re real. That’s exhausting. If verification becomes the baseline instead of the exception, it changes how the whole thing works. You can actually focus on whether you like someone instead of whether they exist.
Check out more about HundRoses on their website, or follow along on Instagram, Facebook, X, and LinkedIn.
