These Fake Dating Apps Are Destroying the 'Justice' in App Store

NEW YORK, June 5, 2018 (Newswire.com) - When something is too good to be true, it usually is. People may doubt when they find a dating app which is listed in the first place, with all the 5-star reviews in App Store. Due to the high competition in app stores, many dating apps developers have resorted to using degrading means to cheat in App Store. The hookup dating app Wild found out that App Stores are now a breeding environment for fake apps with fake ranks & reviews that offers the users nothing but collect personal information from their devices and get money from their users. 

Boosting Ranks and Keywords

It is no secret that many dating apps are boosting their keywords by employing third parties to help them get high rankings. According to a report by Wild, about 50 dating apps are boosting their ranks in the App Store as of January 2018, and this number is on the rise day by day. As a result, many popular apps like Tinder and Meetme saw a decline in their rankings. If users search keyword like Tinder app, they will find that there is another dating app, which is not Tinder, is listed in the first place. So does Meetme. Many users found out that they can not get the right app even by searching the brand name.

Paul Wesley, the founder of Wild, pointed out: “In the App store, to get listed on the first page can be achieved easily, by working with the third parties, they can be ranked as the first app when people are searching dating related keywords. All these fake dating apps are using this to their advantage to cheat their users and get even more users to use their apps.” By checking data on App Annie, Paul found there are at least over five fake dating apps in the App store with each getting about $200,000 every month from their users. Taking this values into consideration, if 2000 users pay a fee of $19 as a membership fee, a fake app will earn $38k, just imagine how much these fake dating apps have made!

Fake Reviews and Bot Messages

These fake dating apps developers are much “smarter” than one would think. Buying fake 5-star reviews is another trick they play in App Store, and it turns out that Apple doesn’t have a good way to get rid of them. Some even send bot messages to their users to mislead them to pay for membership.

Last words

Seeing how these fake apps flaunt themselves in the App store and the fact that Apple is ignoring the issue makes one think if they can’t spot these apps or can’t find any evidence with which they can prosecute the offenders. “We are very sorry to hear that more people become victims of these fake apps, it feels worse when people use dating apps to find something valuable,” says Paul. “Apple only allow users and developers to report these apps to [email protected] which is very ineffective. We can still see these apps in App Store and destroy the dating ‘game’.”

Paul also hopes Apple take all the necessary steps to provide more protection for its users and appeals the genuine developers like Tinder, Meetme to work together to help Apple kick out these fake apps.

To learn more about Wild, visit https://www.justbewild.com.

To download the app, go to:

https://itunes.apple.com/app/wild-dating-app/id1080102131?mt=8

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.free.hookup.dating.apps.wild

Source: Wild