NYC woman claims Tinder date stole her shoes, gave to girlfriend

Shoe better be careful — in the dating world, there’s always trouble afoot. 

There was a time when all a single gal had to worry about was some wannabe womanizer trying to steal her heart. 

But now, an online dater in New York is warning her fellow love-seekers to steer clear of a sticky-fingered fraudster, who she says feigned romantic interest for the sole purpose of stealing her designer shoes. 

“Ladies of NYC be f – – king ware,” urged a knitting enthusiast known virtually as @NextLevelLexuss, 25, in a viral TikTok advisory. 

“This man is out here on Tinder and Hinge, and he will steal from you,” added the bombshell, who shared a screenshot of the alleged perp’s Tinder profile in the background of her post. The image featured a 23-year-old man named Joshua with a cigarette dangling from his lips. 

“This is a story about how that f – – ker stole my Mary Jane Tabis that my father bought for me as a birthday gift,” she continued, of the black, slip-toe Maison Margiela pumps that boast a price tag of $990.  

In the post, which has racked up over 920,000 views, Lexus explains that she randomly bumped into Joshua in Soho, not realizing they’d previously matched on Tinder.

Lexus claims hours after their chance encounter, Joshua sent her a message on the app, leading to them meeting up for drinks later that evening. 

During the date, she determined there wasn’t a love connection between her and the Tinder hunk.

However, the ill-fated pair decided to see each other again, and so Lexus invited Joshua back to her apartment for a night of romance.  

But their sweet new friendship soon tripped over a stumbling block. 

“He comes over, and we sleep together,” Lexus said. “But before we sleep together we’re chatting about fashion and stuff, and he [says] he really wants Tabis.”

She said the morning after their lovemaking, Joshua asked if he could use her phone to find a playlist on Spotify.

The brunette agreed, despite feeling he had already worn out his welcome.

When Joshua failed to find the music on the app, Lexus swiftly bid him farewell. 

It wasn’t until hours later that she noticed her high-end heels had gone missing from her shoe collection.

Even more alarming, when Lexus ran to her phone, planning to contact Joshua about the missing accessories, she realized he’d unmatched with her on Tinder and deleted his phone number from her call history. 

“Oh no, this bitch stole my f – – king shoes,” she moaned. “Moral of the story is, don’t f – – k with this f – – ker named Joshua on Tinder, he’s a d – – khead …. I want my f – – king shoes back.”

The Post reached out to her for comment.

Lexus’ trending warning is much like those of women who’ve met similar creeps online, such as infamous playboys “West Elm Caleb” and “Long Island Kevin,” and the notorious Simon Leviev, who allegedly used the dating platform to scam thousands out of his unsuspecting paramours.

Per Netflix’s flick “The Tinder Swindler,” which made its streaming debut in February 2022, Leviev’s victims have yet to be reimbursed for the monies he reportedly grifted. 

But thanks to the power of social media, Lexus was a little luckier than the rest. 

After her initial clip about the shoe crook went viral, Lexus returned to TikTok, thanking virtual sleuths for connecting her to Joshua’s Instagram — where she discovered he’d gifted her fancy footwear to his girlfriend. 

Joshua eventually called Lexus, hoping to throw her off his scent. 

“He starts to gaslight me and tell me that he didn’t steal them, and he doesn’t know how it happened and what happened,” she says in a subsequent clip that earned 1.1 million views. “He’s like, ‘That’s just out of my character. I would never do that.’

“This man is a psychopath,” she insists. 

When Joshua realized that Lexus wasn’t buying his claims of innocence, he allegedly offered to give her $1,000 for the inconvenience. But she refused to bite. 

“I send him a screenshot of his girlfriend wearing my Tabis,” she said. “Then hours later … he’s like, ‘Alright, you caught me.’”

Joshua agreed to return the shoes, which are now in Lexus’ care. 

In response to the popularity of her harrowing dating nightmare, she said, “I’m just simply a girl who wanted her shoes back.”

“And to warn other girls about this sociopath,” who, Lexus added, “has done s – – t like this before.”