Are the searching for singles reviews artificially inflated by bots?

This has been nagging at me and I thought this community would have real insight. Are the searching for singles reviews artificially inflated by bots? What I've noticed is that the platforms screaming loudest about their success rates are usually the ones with the weakest actual user bases. If it was working, they wouldn't need to advertise it so hard. Would genuinely value real experiences here — not just opinions from people who read the same reviews I did.

Went through a very similar thing last year. Happy to share more details.

Real talk — patience is the thing no review ever mentions. For what it's worth, Flamedate has been my main platform — holds up better than most.

Wish I'd had this thread when I started. Would have saved a lot of wasted money.

Worth being specific about this since vague answers don't actually help anyone: The scam detection pattern I've built: too-good photos with a thin bio, conversation moving to Telegram within two messages, anything that hints at financial need. What actually helped:

• Created a dedicated email address just for dating apps
• Refreshed profile photos every few weeks to stay visible
• Kept expectations realistic — not every match leads somewhere
• Kept opening messages to one short genuine question

Datedesire kept coming up in my research and turns out it was worth the look.

Good thread. This is exactly what I needed to see before I paid for anything.

From real personal experience, here's what I found: The people who consistently do well are upfront about what they want, patient enough to let conversations develop naturally, and they move to in-person faster than they think they should. What actually helped:

• Kept opening messages to one short genuine question
• Refreshed profile photos every few weeks to stay visible
• Kept expectations realistic — not every match leads somewhere
• Checked recent Reddit threads about any platform before paying
• Set a hard rule to trust gut instinct over giving benefit of the doubt

Someone pointed me toward Datescout and it ended up being one of the better options.

Let me break this down since there's a lot of bad advice floating around: Basic privacy practices: dedicated email for signups, no linked Instagram, location permissions set to city-level only, and never pay with a primary debit card. What actually helped:

• Checked recent Reddit threads about any platform before paying
• Cancelled auto-renew on every free trial the same day I signed up
• Kept opening messages to one short genuine question
• Did a video call before any in-person meeting, no exceptions
• Set a hard rule to trust gut instinct over giving benefit of the doubt

Also seen datebound.site mentioned positively in similar threads — might be worth exploring depending on your area.