The CEO of Match Group says he feels bad for people who fall for dating scams, but “things happen in life.”

The Federal Trade Commission says that romance scams on dating apps and websites are becoming more common. These scams usually target baby boomers and later groups.

In its Internet Crime Report from just last year, the FBI said that Americans had lost more than $650 million to romance scams. The FTC, which looks into more things, said that these scams also took a huge $1.3 billion from Americans in 2022.

Mr. Bernard Kim, CEO of Match Group, talked to CBS News about how dangerous it is for people from other countries to run online dating scams. Most people in the US know Match Group as the parent company of both Match.com and Tinder.

“Look, I mean, things happen in life,” Kim told CBS when they asked him what he would tell people who have been scammed. “That’s challenging.” Though I feel wrong about what happens, our assignment is to make sure that everyone is secure on our sites; that is the most essential thing to us.

Court records show that the FTC sued Match Group in federal court in July 2022, saying that “as many as 25 to 30 percent of Match.com members who registered each day were using Match.com to perpetrate scams.”

Match Group told Business Insider that the numbers in the claim are not accurate and that the court did not accept claims about the number of sign-ups that might be fraudulent.

A spokeswoman for Match told BI that the company has been “one of the most vocal” in the space about working with police to fight scams.

Match told BI, “We’ve done several campaigns to stop romance scams.” “We’ve done some pop-up messages within our apps, educating people on the common behaviors of scams and then also how to avoid them.”

Scams that were used on Match included “phishing” to get personal information from customers and “sextortion scams,” in which scammers trick a victim into giving them embarrassing photos or videos that they then use to get money from the victim.

Authorities say that it is very hard to get back stolen money that has already been taken by scammers, and victims usually don’t get back all of the money they lose.

In Florida, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said that crooks tricked a woman into thinking she had won a fake Publishers Clearing House contest, but they could only get back about $40,000. They took more than $400,000 from her.

Judd told reporters, “You go get subpoenas, and then the bank takes their time getting data back. The money is gone, long gone.”

The FTC says that if you do send money to a scammer, you should ask the company that you used to send the money to help you get it back if they can.