The Crypto Catfish
The Dating Detectives
Dear Media
4.7 • 3.2K Ratings
🗓️ 5 January 2026
⏱️ 94 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this Dating Detectives episode we talk to Mary, a devoted true-crime fan who believed she knew every red flag—until she found herself pulled into an online connection that felt unusually thoughtful, emotionally intimate, and too real to ignore. What begins on Bumble slowly moves off-app, where charm, consistency, and shared vulnerability blur the line between intuition and overthinking. As subtle cracks begin to show, Mary uncovers a truth far darker and more sophisticated than a typical romance scam. This episode explores modern crypto romance fraud, emotional manipulation, and how even the most informed daters can be targeted, revealing why sometimes a bad feeling is more than enough reason to walk away.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following program contains names, places, and events that have been anonymized or fictionalized for the purposes of protection and safety. |
| 0:08.8 | The following program is provided for entertainment purposes only, and any commentary from the hosts are strictly conjecture and should not be held as making any definitive statements about the truth or identity of any particular individuals or circumstances. |
| 0:21.2 | If you or a loved one are involved in an abusive relationship, |
| 0:24.2 | please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-723 for support. |
| 0:40.2 | Happy dating detectives Monday. |
| 0:41.8 | Hello and happy New Year. |
| 0:43.5 | Happy New Year. |
| 0:44.9 | And I'm in the studio. |
| 0:45.5 | I know. |
| 0:46.2 | I'm not. |
| 0:47.9 | I know. |
| 0:50.6 | I bet it's just me and Molly here. |
| 0:53.7 | And now Hannah is the one that remote. Far away. Can we talk real quick before we get into the story about some New Year's resolutions? |
| 0:58.5 | Oh, yes. Let's do it. So we thought of a good one. We'll apply to some of you maybe. |
| 1:03.3 | If you are a listener, yeah, who is in a relationship where you have noticed a red flag, |
| 1:09.9 | where you've had some behaviors happen where you're |
| 1:12.9 | like, ooh, dogfishy, maybe? What else? If you just feel like there's just something not right |
| 1:20.0 | and you're like, oh, my fintuition is going off so hardcore. We really want to empower you |
| 1:26.4 | to dump them. Your New Year's resolution is to dump them. |
| 1:30.5 | Put that on the vision board. If you just, you have this feeling in your gut or in your heart or |
| 1:36.7 | your brain and it's just like these spidey senses are tingling and you just know it, I hope this is |
| 1:42.7 | your empowerment. This story is a good one because we talk about |
... |
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