GUIDE: HOW TO GET AROUND A TINDER BAN
I'm still writing articles, folks. Not spending as much time as I'd like to spend, but I'm still slowly chipping away and focusing on quality.
If anyone has been banned on Tinder and wants to get a workaround, this one is for you.
@Bman @MakingAComeback
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GUIDE: HOW TO GET AROUND A TINDER BAN
Let's go Netrunning. (Koziol, 2022).
The 'Dating Cartels'
I'm quite outspoken about the fact that I have a serious issue with Tinder and the other big 'dating cartels'. There is definitely an omnipresent bias towards men.
Of course, they will gladly take your money no questions asked when you are purchasing boosts, premium packages, super likes, etc. but will not hesitate to ban you for seemingly no reason at all.
I'm shadow banned on Tinder and have been for many years now, without any actual explanation as to why, despite my multiple enquiries with Tinder 'support' which have gone unanswered.
After reading around on the internet and speaking to people I know, I'm not alone in this.
Tinder is the most well-known and popular dating application in the world, with 75 million monthly users (Zauderer, 2024).
This means that 1% of the entire population of Earth use Tinder every month.
Your opportunities to meet women are therefore seriously hindered if you cannot access this particular application.
I could go on all day about my issues with the online dating spectrum, but I view Tinder as a 'necessary evil' for meeting women, due to it's popularity and availability. Instead of ranting and raving about the whole situation, I think it's far more practical to find solutions and workarounds.
Through trial and error, I have managed to bypass the shadow-ban and make new Tinder accounts, despite Tinder implementing new security measures seemingly every couple of months in an attempt to catch me out.
I'm still using Tinder as we speak to meet girls and get laid using this exact method.
If you have tried appealing your ban to Tinder and your enquiries have also all fallen on deaf ears, read on to see how you can bypass the ban.
New Sim Card
With a shadow ban, your phone number is blacklisted. You are going to need a new phone number, which means you will need a new sim card.
You can buy these at chain discount stores like Dollar General, corner stores etc. for just a couple of bucks. In the U.K, Poundland or Home Bargains sell them for £1.
I'd recommend doing some research and picking one up that allows you to buy a very cheap internet package as an add-on feature.
New Email Address
As well as your phone number, your email address is also blacklisted.
This is pretty easy to get around. I go onto Google and create a new Google Account to get a new G-mail address which takes a few minutes. Any email provider will do - doesn't have to be Google.
It's also worth getting a little password book or a piece of paper to make a note of your new email address and password for when you do login to Tinder and they ask you to verify your email address. Saves you the hassle of going through a password reset further down the line when you can't remember your login details (speaking from personal experience).
New Phone
Tinder's database will detect when you are using the same phone to try and make a new account.
You have 2 options to bypass this:
Factory reset your phone
or...
Get a burner phone to use for your Tinder account.
To save losing all of your data on your main phone, I would recommend the latter.
I bought a Samsung Galaxy A14 for £100 new, plus a sim card with a cheap internet package deal that I can cancel any time.
If I get re-banned for whatever reason, I just factory reset this phone, and then get a new sim card and repeat the process. My main phone then retains all it's data and I don't have to mess around with it.
Used phone stores are also ideal to get cheap phones, like Back Market and CEX. You don't need anything fancy like the latest iPhone. Something cheap but decent is what you want to aim for.
I got the Samsung Galaxy A14 5G and it's fit for purpose and works well.
I bought this from Amazon and it came next day brand new for 100 bucks.
New Photos or Alter previous ones
Tinder can also detect photos you use from your old profile by recognising the metadata.
Using old photos may flag up on the blacklist database and lock you out of your new account.
You again have 2 options to get around this:
Use new photos
or
Alter your old ones.
If like me you had some very good photos on your previous profile, altering them to bypass Tinder's detection algorithm is quite a simple process. Below is a tutorial:
- Use an online metadata stripper. You can strip the metadata, then download the photo with it removed. I use this one: Metadata remover - Online EXIF data remover (pics.io)
2. Crop the photo slightly, either on your phone or laptop.
3. Add some very small 'paint dots' onto the image using your phone or laptop. If you look where the red arrow is below, you can see a few small dots I've added in. You can use black dots on a black background to make them blend in. Aim here is to fool the computer algorithm and not the naked human eye, so don't worry too much as long as they are there.
This should be enough to re-use your old photos without getting flagged.
Different Internet Connection
You will also need a new internet connection. Tinder detects any previous internet setups, so your home WiFi is out, and your previous 4G or 5G you've used through your mobile network.
Public WiFi can be an option, but it depends if you want to take a trip out of the house and buy a coffee in Starbucks just to use their internet and swipe on Tinder. I didn't, so I paid the 10 bucks a month for a 'cancel anytime' internet add-on to my sim card.
When shopping for a new sim card, look to see if you can get a cheap internet add-on from the service provider.
Using Tinder won't actually use too much data regardless. I convert girls to WhatsApp or iMessage ASAP anyway onto my main phone after we've chatted a bit.
Revolut for any purchases
This one caught me out early on.
Tinder will now detect any previous payment cards and bank accounts that you may have used to purchase Boosts, Superlikes, Gold, Platinum etc.
The workaround for this one is to use a company like Revolut.
Revolut or a similar company will allow you to generate a new, virtual card which you can put money into using Apple/Google Pay, or a regular debit card. You can also obtain a disposable card on Revolut for a one-off payment.
You input the card details into the Tinder 'payment details' section when purchasing something as normal, and as long as your card is topped up with the sufficient funds, the payment will go through.
POST SETUP PRECAUTIONS
If you have followed all of the above steps, you should now be good to go and have set up your new Tinder profile.
There are a few further precautions I'd recommend so your hard work doesn't get shot down at the last minute.
DO NOT PHOTO-VERIFY
If you photo-verify, then your photo will be subject to enhanced scanning - once it goes through this security scan, it'll flag your profile as previously banned, then lock you out.
The only option with this is to reject any prompts to photo-verify your profile.
You will now unfortunately have to live with an unverified Tinder profile, but I still make it work. I put something humorous in my bio:
Happy to prove I'm not secretly a 45 year-old, fat, bald dude called 'Hector' .
If a girl wants a video call or a voice note, etc. to prove I'm not some fat, 60 year-old Nigerian sex killer or whatever, then I'm happy to accommodate her.
I look at it from the female point of view:
Meeting strange men from the internet can be risky. There are a lot of fake profiles as well as crime documentaries and scare stories out there on psychos using Tinder to target victims.
ALLOW FOR A COOLING-OFF PERIOD
I'd recommend giving it a few days before buying anything or upgrading to Tinder Gold, or Platinum.
It's important to have this cooling-off period, as if you upgrade and then get re-banned, Tinder WILL NOT give you your money back for any purchases you may have made.
3-5 days is generally enough time to means test your new profile. If you get re-banned, at least you haven't lost money on any premium features. After this period, you should be good to go on making purchases. Just remember to use your alternate virtual card/account.
UNMATCH GIRLS IF YOU MEET THEM
A friend of mine got banned because he had a bad date with a girl, wasn't feeling it, and told her - she then reported him to Tinder for 'harassment' as a petty form of revenge for his honesty.
He got banned as a result.
To this day, he is still banned on Tinder with no explanation.
There is a lesson to learn from this.
If I meet a girl on Tinder in-person now and I've got her number, I will un-match her. There is absolutely no further need to have her on my Tinder stack if I have her number/socials.
Some women (and some men) can be very, very, petty and vindictive if something does go wrong for whatever reason. The only form of revenge some people may have is to make up some bullshit to the 'Tinder police' to get you banned.
I can 100% guarantee from personal experience and from speaking to other men that as a man, Tinder will instantly take the girl's side if a report is made and will not be interested in hearing you out whatsoever.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Getting around a Tinder ban may seem like a bit of hard work, but I still stand by the point that Tinder is a necessary evil in today's world if you want to date and get laid easily. There isn't really much of a viable alternative out there at the moment.
I look at it from the viewpoint of luck - we are lucky that we are born into a time period where we can access hundreds of girls at our finger tips. Our parents and grandparents had to do strictly cold approach, or take out a 'lonely hearts' ad in the newspaper.
We have hundreds of opportunities and open doors to walk through and benefit from with online dating. Sadly, we run out of luck when it comes to who is in charge of the dating websites and how they operate.
I shall still continue to call out Tinder and the other 'Dating Cartels' for the biased and unscrupulous, shady business practices they seem to get away with daily. Until a better alternative comes along, we just have to find workarounds and do the best with what we got.
Source List:
Koziol, J. (2022) Cyberpunk 2077's Netrunners Deserve Better. SCREENRANT [online]. [Accessed Date: 14th September 2024]. Available at: <Cyberpunk 2077's Netrunners Deserve Better (screenrant.com)>.
Zauderer, S. (2024) Key Tinder Statistics You Need to Know, Cross River Therapy [online]. [Accessed Date: 14th September 2024]. Available at: <Key Tinder Statistics You Need to Know (crossrivertherapy.com)>.