New Buyer Guide Published as Regulators Press Dating Platforms on Screening

A New Jersey settlement requires nine dating services to disclose how they screen members. A guide published this week explains what matchmakers verify instead.

NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES, September 8, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- NEW YORK, NY — On September 1 the New Jersey Attorney General announced that Match Inc. had agreed to pay $650,000 and change its public disclosures across nine internet dating services, including Match, Tinder, Hinge and Plenty of Fish, to resolve allegations that it misrepresented or failed to disclose its criminal background screening policies. Within 150 days the platforms must tell New Jersey users how screenings are conducted, whether that information is ever updated, and which crimes disqualify someone from contacting members. They must also carry a notice stating that screenings are not foolproof.

A buyer's guide published this week by TrustedMatchmakers sets that requirement against what professional matchmaking firms verify before making an introduction, and against the wider movement of users away from dating platforms.

NPR reported in August that Match Group had seen declines in paying users across Tinder, Hinge and OkCupid, and that Bumble had also lost subscribers, with Gen Z and Millennial users dropping off fastest. Federal Trade Commission data show consumers reported losing $1.16 billion to romance scams in the first nine months of 2025, across 55,604 reports, a 22 percent increase over the same period a year earlier.

"The largest dating company in the world has been ordered to tell its users, in writing, that its vetting may not work," said Cassindy Chao, a working matchmaker of more than 20 years and the founder of AWM Love, who compiled the guide. "A matchmaker is the opposite arrangement. Someone with a name and a reputation has spoken to the person you are about to meet, and will hear about it directly if the date goes badly."

New York supports more professional matchmakers than any other American city. The guide argues that abundance is itself the difficulty for New York buyers, because firms describe themselves in near identical terms and a national brand and a solo practitioner are hard to tell apart from their websites.

It recommends New Yorkers ask one question in particular before signing: how much of the candidate pool behind a New York search is genuinely in New York, rather than drawn from a national database.

Professional matchmaking remains a small category. Around 1 percent of respondents to the Kinsey Institute's Singles in America study have reported using a matchmaker in any year since the study began asking in 2012.

"You are not buying the more popular option," said Chao. "You are buying the one where a person, rather than a feed, is accountable for who shows up."

About TrustedMatchmakers

TrustedMatchmakers.com is a directory of 131 professional matchmaking practices across the United States, compiled from publicly available material and maintained by working matchmakers. Listings are free and cannot be purchased. Where the site introduces a client to a matchmaker, that matchmaker may pay a referral fee.

Media contact: hello@trustedmatchmakers.com Web:

Diana Choi
Ancient Wisdom Modern Love
+1 650-395-8535
email us here
Visit us on social media:
LinkedIn