This is what we
actually write.
Four documents from one worked case - a false-report Hinge ban. Yours is drafted from scratch for the facts you confirm, you are copied on every filing as it goes out, and we never ask for your password.
The platform appeal - Hinge, in the app
The only channel that reinstates at scale, and on Hinge it is a plain text box with no attachments. So the whole case has to survive being read in about a minute. You get one of these; a second is not an improvement.
Where it goes: the Appeal button inside the Hinge app, on Jordan’s own login. There is no email address that works - Hinge’s own help centre says messages sent to staff are not processed and can delay your place in the queue.
The statement, as pasted:
My account was banned on 11 [month] under the Community Guidelines on harassment. The notice named no message, no match and no date.
The report follows a conversation that started on Hinge on 3 [month] and moved to WhatsApp on the 7th, where we argued and stopped speaking. I did not insult her, threaten her, or contact her again. On 9 [month] she wrote “I’ll report you”. The ban was applied two days later.
I have the whole exchange, unedited, first message to last, and will send it the moment you ask. Read next to the report, it shows nothing the harassment policy describes.
Three years on this account, photo verified, HingeX active, no prior warnings. I am asking for one human to read the conversation rather than the report alone. If something else is at issue, name it and I will answer it. Photo ID available today if that is needed.
849 characters. The box is best kept under 1,000, so every sentence has to earn its place: the dated facts, the one thing the first reviewer never saw, the offer of evidence, and a specific, answerable request. No apology for something you did not do, no paragraph about how much the app means to you, and no threats. If Hinge comes back asking for ID, that is a good sign, not a bad one - it means a human is about to look at you.
Illustrative sample - every real statement is drafted from scratch for the customer’s facts.
The escalation desk statement - Match Group
Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid, Match, Plenty of Fish and The League all sit under one company, and that company runs a desk that will take a second human look across every account you hold with it. Once. It needs a customer-care ticket reference, so the in-app appeal has to exist first. This one we file in your name, and on a Tinder ban it is where the written case begins.
To: the Match Group escalation desk, at matchgroup-socialsupport.com
Re: Request for second review - Hinge account [REDACTED], customer-care reference [REDACTED]
I am asking for the second review this desk provides. My Hinge account, registered to [REDACTED], was terminated on 11th [month] under the Community Guidelines provision on harassment. I appealed inside the app on 12th [month]. The decision came back on 14th [month] with no reason stated and no conduct identified. The care reference for that exchange is [REDACTED].
I understand this desk looks once, across every Match Group account a person holds. So this is the whole of my case, and I have kept it to the parts that can be checked.
Accounts held with Match Group. Hinge, registered to [REDACTED], three years old, photo-verified, with a HingeX subscription active on the date of termination. Tinder, registered to [REDACTED], in good standing as at today’s date. I am raising only the Hinge decision, but I would rather you saw both accounts now than found the second one later.
What happened, dated. The conversation began on Hinge on 3rd [month] and moved to WhatsApp on the 7th, where a disagreement took place and contact ended. On the 9th the other party wrote that she would report me. The termination was applied on the 11th. I did not contact her at any point after the 7th, on any platform.
What the in-app appeal could not carry. The appeal box holds a few hundred words and takes no attachments, so the evidence could only be described. It is one complete conversation, unedited and timestamped, from the first message to the last, across both platforms. I will provide it in whatever format you specify. I am not asking anyone to accept my summary of it. I am asking that it be read, because a report and the conversation that produced it are not the same document, and only one of them has so far been in front of a reviewer.
What I am asking for. A human review of the termination against that conversation, and then one of two things: the specific conduct found to have breached the section cited, or reinstatement if no such conduct is found. If the account cannot be restored, I would still like to know which provision I am recorded as having broken, so that I have something I can actually answer.
Thank you for the second look.
Jordan R. - 16th [month]
Illustrative sample - one escalation per person, so it goes in once and it goes in complete.
The GDPR Article 15 access request - Hinge’s data controller
Access, never erasure. Erasure does not remove a ban record - Hinge keeps those for up to two years, lawfully - and it destroys your own evidence on the way out. This one goes to the controller named for your country in the app’s privacy notice, which is often not the company whose name is on the icon. We file it in your name.
To: The Data Protection Officer, [the controller named for my country in Hinge’s privacy notice]
Re: Subject access request under Article 15 GDPR - account [REDACTED]
I am the data subject for the Hinge account registered to [REDACTED]. This is a formal subject access request under Article 15 of the General Data Protection Regulation. Please confirm whether you are processing personal data concerning me and, if so, provide a copy of that data together with the information listed in Article 15(1), paragraphs (a) to (h).
Without limiting the generality of that request, I ask that the following categories be included, as they relate to the enforcement decision applied to my account on 11th [month]:
- Moderation records - all records connected to the decision, including reviewer notes, classifications, and the specific policy provision recorded as violated;
- Report metadata - the date, category, and handling history of any report concerning my account, with third-party personal data redacted as Article 15(4) requires; I am not seeking the identity of any reporter;
- Enforcement flags - any flags, labels, scores, or status markers attached to my account, or to device or payment identifiers associated with it, as a consequence of the decision;
- Automated decision-making - whether the decision was made solely by automated means and, if so, meaningful information about the logic involved and the significance and envisaged consequences for me, per Article 15(1)(h);
- Recipients - the recipients or categories of recipient to whom any of the above has been disclosed.
Article 12(3) requires you to respond without undue delay and in any event within one month of receipt. I note that this period may be extended by two further months where a request is complex, provided you inform me of the extension, and the reasons for it, within the first month. Please treat the date of this message as the start of that period.
I will provide proof of identity by any reasonable means you specify, and I ask that the data be supplied in a commonly used electronic format. This request is made independently of, and in addition to, any appeal against the enforcement decision itself: it concerns my statutory right of access, which does not depend on the outcome of that appeal.
Yours faithfully,
Jordan R. - 14th [month]
Illustrative sample - every real filing is drafted from scratch for the customer’s facts.
If that request is ignored, the complaint goes to your data protection authority, and that is the escalation with reinstatements published behind it: the Irish Data Protection Commission’s own case reports include banned Tinder users whose access requests went unanswered, whose accounts Tinder reviewed afresh and restored once the DPC took the matter up. It is a slow road. It is also a real one.
The public record - a BBB complaint against Match Group, Inc.
This one does not lift bans. We tell you that before we file it, and we only file it if you ask. Match Group answers ban complaints made through the BBB portal with a template explaining that appeals cannot be processed that way. What it does do is put a dated, public, written account of the dispute on the record: 14 days on the company’s clock to answer, three years visible on the profile, one complaint per business per 24 months, US and Canada only. It builds the file. It is not a lever, and anyone selling it to you as one is guessing.
Complaint against: Match Group, Inc., operator of the Hinge platform
Filed by: Jordan R. - contact email [REDACTED]
Transaction details:
- Service: HingeX, a paid recurring subscription, active and in good standing on the date of termination
- Account: held for three years, photo-verified, registered to [REDACTED]
- Date of termination: 11th [month]; most recent subscription charge: [REDACTED]
- Receipt and order references: [REDACTED]
Nature of the complaint. On 11th [month], Match Group terminated my access to a service I was actively paying for. The termination notice cited the platform’s Community Guidelines on harassment but identified no specific conduct, message, or incident. On 12th [month] I appealed through the in-app channel, setting out the dated facts and offering documentary evidence: the complete conversation the ban appears to relate to, which contains no abusive content from my side and includes a message from the other party stating an intention to report me. The appeal was refused on 14th [month] with no reason given.
This is a consumer dispute, not a request for the BBB to adjudicate content moderation. My position is narrow: a business that sells a subscription service and then terminates it mid-term should be able to state, at least in general terms, what the customer is found to have done - and should engage with a properly submitted appeal that offers evidence. To date I have received neither: no statement of what I am found to have done, and no response to the evidence I offered to provide.
Resolution sought:
- A reasoned response on the record: either the specific conduct found to have violated the cited policy, or, if no violating conduct is found on review, reinstatement of the account; and
- Confirmation of the position taken on the subscription that was terminated mid-term.
I am not asking Match Group to waive its rules. I am asking it to apply them to the facts of my case and to say what it found. Copies of the termination notice, my appeal, the refusal, and the underlying conversation are available on request.
Illustrative sample - it builds the file, it does not lift the ban, and we say so before we file it.
One number to keep in view while you read these. In 2025, under the EU’s transparency rules, Hinge reversed 36.1% of the appeals it received, Match Group 31.8% across all of its brands, and Tinder 21.2% of its account bans. Roughly one appeal in three comes back reversed at the Match Group brands. Those are the platforms’ own published figures and not ours - we have never claimed a success rate, and we are not about to start. What we sell is that the document in front of the reviewer is the calm one, filed once, on time, with the evidence attached where it settles something.