The Tinder Swindler or the Secret Thrill of Being Duped

Review of Tinder Swindler crime documentary on Netflix

By the time he asked for $30,000 to escape his enemies, she’d already seen the bloodied bodyguard, flown private, and fallen in love.

She didn’t hesitate.

She took out a loan.

Then another.

Then another.

Then she checked herself into a psychiatric hospital.

Because - I quote - “what else is there to do?”

You can laugh. Twitter did.

But admit it: you didn’t stop watching.

Because The Tinder Swindler isn’t a documentary but a test.

How long can you go before the schadenfreude kicks in?

Before you mutter, “These women are insane,” and then quietly wonder if you’d fall for it too.

Not the jet. Not the man. The story.

What’s The Tinder Swindler actually about? Oh, just your average story of a balding Israeli man named Simon, who poses as the son of a diamond billionaire, rents Lamborghinis with other women’s money, takes you on a first date via private jet, fake-cries about his enemies, shows you a bruised bodyguard to prove he’s in danger, and then, just when you think it can’t get any more Nicolas Cage, sends you a text at 2:17 a.m. that says: “Baby, I need $25,000. Immediately. My enemies are watching.”

And the best part?

It works!

Repeatedly.

Across countries, currencies, accents, and IQ scores.

No hypnosis, no chloroform, no ransomware.

Just emojis, trauma bonding, and the male equivalent of duckface: luxury branding.

Simon doesn’t steal your money.

You give it to him, eagerly, like an offering at the altar of “finally, a man who gets it.”

And by the time he maxes out your AmEx and disappears into the Gucci-scented night with someone else’s girlfriend, you’re left holding a bag of emotional shrapnel and 37 bank statements.

By the time she realizes something’s off, she’s twenty-five grand deep, sleeping two hours a night, forging pay stubs in Photoshop, and calling American Express from the back of a cab, crying.

Not over the money.

Over the dream.

The lifestyle.

The six-foot hallucination in designer boots who told her she was “the love of his life” between two meetings and a bottle of Dom.

And what does she do when it all crashes?

She puts on mascara and goes to a bank meeting.

She takes out another loan.

Because you can’t let the fairy tale fall apart on a technicality.

Not when you’ve already told your friends.

Not when you’ve posted the photos.

Not when it looked that real.

Better to go broke than admit you got played.

Better to triple down than be the girl who stops believing halfway through Act II.

You watch it thinking: I’d never.

I’d never wire that money.

I’d never believe that accent.

I’d never fall for that kind of man.

But the documentary isn’t asking if you’d fall for him.

It’s asking something worse.

It’s asking how badly you want to be chosen.

How much you’re willing to pay to be seen, to be loved, to be invited on the jet instead of left on the tarmac.

And if you’re being honest, the number might surprise you.

Because Simon didn’t just swindle women.

He sold them the same dream we all chase in quieter ways: romance, status, escape.

And thing is, most of us have handed over something - our time, our sanity, our weekends - to someone who made it sound just as good.

Netflix, of course, has made a genre out of this.

You could call it the Scam Trilogy: Fyre, The Inventor, The Tinder Swindler.

Different industries: festivals, biotech, love.

Same formula: one sociopath with good cheekbones and a Wi-Fi connection, selling fantasies to people who should’ve known better.

We laugh at Ja Rule and the FEMA tents, we gasp at Elizabeth Holmes and her baritone, and then we sit through The Tinder Swindler thinking: “Okay but… he did take her to Mykonos.”

The charisma always wins.

That’s the unspoken rule of the genre.

We root for the scammers.

Because they have what we’re told to want: vision, drive, taste.

They’re delusional, yes, but confidently so.

And confidence, in this world, is currency.

That’s the trick with these scammer stories.

They dress up as exposés, but they’re really funhouse mirrors.

You think you’re just watching someone else’s disaster but halfway through, you catch your own reflection.

Not because you dated a Simon.

But because you’ve bought into a story before.

Maybe it wasn’t love on a jet.

Maybe it was a job that looked good on paper.

A relationship that had “potential.”

A plan that made sense at the time.

That’s not stupidity.

That’s being human in a world that runs on pitch decks and pretty lies.

So maybe you didn’t get swindled by a fake diamond heir.

But maybe you said yes to a job because the title sounded shiny.

Maybe you stayed in a role because everyone said it was “a great opportunity.”

Maybe you poured five years into something that drained you - not all at once, just quietly, in tiny invisible withdrawals.

That’s the thing about cons.

The loud ones make headlines.

The quiet ones get framed as “success.”

And before you know it, you’re stuck in a career that looks impressive and feels like a scam you pulled on yourself.

If any of that felt uncomfortably familiar - good.

It means you haven’t tuned yourself out.

It means there’s still a part of you that’s paying attention.

And maybe it’s time to listen to it.

I offer something called a Career Reality Check.

It’s 30 minutes. $50. No strings.

(Which is funny, because untangling the ones you’re already in is kind of the whole point.)

You talk. I ask questions.

We look at the story you’ve been following — and see if it’s still yours.

👉 Book it here

Or don’t. But if you’ve made it this far, I’m guessing you already know.