At a techno party in Athens, I met a French expat with an unusual job—he managed fake profiles on dating sites.
He worked as a “chat moderator,” a legal and remote job where he pretended to be women on dating apps. The reason? Dating platforms are flooded with men, and to keep them engaged—and subscribed—they create fake female profiles. His job was to chat with these men, keep their hopes up, and make sure they never actually met the fake girls.
He got paid €0.09 per message and could earn around €10 an hour. His company handled many dating apps, creating all kinds of fake personas—sexy, shy, religious—based on what the male users were looking for. All employees could reply to messages on any fake profile, and everything was monitored to avoid outright scams.
Though the job was manipulative, he enjoyed the freedom, the anonymity, and even the bizarre conversations about fetishes and fantasies. His only rule? Never cross the line into real fraud. That was left to the scammers—though the line was thin.
So next time you’re messaging someone on a dating app… you might just be chatting with a guy like him.
