When profiles impersonating Herrick began to appear on Scruff, he filed an abuse complaint with the company that led to the offending account being banned within 24 hours, according to Herrick's complaint against Grindr. Herrick contrasts Grindr's alleged lack of direct communication or action on the spoofed accounts to the behavior of a lesser-known gay dating app, Scruff. 'It’s cheaper for them not to staff a department that addresses complaints and abuses of the product.' Grindr did not respond to WIRED's requests for comment. "Grindr can control that, and they’re not." "A malicious user is just running amok using their product as a weapon," says Goldberg. Goldberg and Herrick also declined to comment further on the ex-boyfriend or his alleged involvement in the spoofing attacks, emphasizing that Grindr is the subject of their lawsuit for allowing the spoofing regardless of who carried it out. Goldberg declined to share any of that evidence, however, preferring to reveal it at a later stage in the lawsuit. "Any attack on my client’s credibility is countered by the voluminous evidence I’ve seen," says Goldberg, who has risen to prominence as a fierce advocate of victims of revenge pornography cases. Goldberg said she had personally verified all the claims in the complaint. The ex-boyfriend told WIRED in a phone call that he denies "any and all allegations" in the complaint, but declined to comment further due to what he described as another pending case that involves both him and Herrick. And those more extreme invitations, according to Herrick, would bring a more aggressive and, at times, even violent crowd of visitors. Spoofed profiles with pictures of Herrick's semi-nude body began to offer rough, unprotected sex, orgies, and drugs. In the weeks that followed, Herrick says, the fake accounts began to evolve. The unwanted suitors had gotten his phone number through the app as well, and bombarded him with messages, calls, and pictures of genitalia.
Soon there were eight or nine visitors a day, and then more than a dozen, all finding their way not just to Herrick's home, but also to the midtown Manhattan restaurant where he worked. Herrick reported the fake profile to Grindr, but the impersonations only multiplied. The next day brought just as many, all of whom referred to the same spoofed account. Herrick says three more men came to his home that first day, all expecting sex. "That's me, but that's not me," he remembers saying.
That's when the man pulled out his phone and showed Herrick a Grindr profile that included a photo of Herrick in his kitchen, taken from his Instagram account, including the 32-year-old actor and model's face and bare chest.
Herrick said that he hadn't-he hadn't even looked at the app in a week-and asked how the stranger even knew his name. Then he asked matter-of-factly if Herrick was the one who'd been communicating with him via the hookup app Grindr, and who'd minutes earlier invited him over for sex. As Herrick tells it, the man innocently pressed the buzzer for Herrick's apartment. Last October, Matthew Herrick was smoking a cigarette in front of his West Harlem brownstone when the first visitor appeared.
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