She spent "$25,000 looking for companionship". It just happened to be on TikTok. I used to read about users (male and female) losing lots more on other, more conventional, dating sites.

From the article, it seems she would have found a way to spend this money eventually on other things:

"spent the year she retired traveling — dining in Dubai, sipping cocktails by the sea in Montego Bay, Jamaica, or strolling among monks in Kathmandu, Nepal."

Is she not partly (or wholly) responsible for this? She's not a young adult (with little life experience) who recently fell into a ton of cash. This is a 65 year old retired insurance investigator.

There should be some personal accountability considering that she was over-spending long before the COVID lock-down.

I realize there's a lot to say about dark patterns. I'm personally angered by how little oversight there is. But, in this case... is she like a gambling addict visiting a gambling site? That is... did she have an obsessive need to fulfill something in her psyche (for lack of a better phrasing)?