Paid introductions, unchecked truths

Despite graduating from one of Karachi’s top universities and having built an exceptionally successful career in journalism, 32-year-old *Hira was told by a rishta aunty (a female matchmaker) that she would only receive proposals from divorced or widowed men or from men looking for a second marriage, because she is now over 30.

“Think about it. You spend your entire life studying, building a career and creating your own identity. Yet none of that matters because of your age,” she told this scribe.

After taking an advance payment of PKR 5,000, the rishta aunty brought forward a proposal for Hira: a man whose first marriage had ended. The matchmaker told Hira’s aunt that the man’s family wanted to get their son married to Hira in less than a week. But when the two families met, it emerged that the matchmaker had told a similar version of the story to the other side - that Hira’s family was pushing for a quick nikah.

Not only that, Hira’s family got another surprise: the groom had a four-year-old daughter. When they inquired about his job and whether he owned the house he lived in, her relatives were accused of being ‘materialistic.’ It was later revealed that the man’s divorce had been far more contentious than they had been led to believe. When they confronted the rishta aunty, she not only became hostile but also refused to send the rest of the proposals she had promised and blocked their number.

A high-fee business with little accountability

In Pakistan, where more than 80 per cent of marriages are arranged, matchmakers play a significant role in connecting prospective brides and grooms. For many, these matchmakers are seen as trusted intermediaries. However, despite charging anywhere between PKR 50,000 and PKR 1.5 million, depending on the prospect’s area, city or country of residence and profession, most provide little more than an introduction, with no obligation to verify the information they share.

Not every matchmaker scam relies on emotional pressure. For *Sabeen, the deception was more calculated and had she not been smart enough to take her intuition seriously, she would have married a man pretending to be an ACCA-certified professional. A matchmaker introduced the two families and soon after, Sabeen was engaged to Shahzad. As they began talking, the then-26-year-old Sabeen, a biotechnologist by profession, was put off by his broken English. She asked him for his ACCA certificate and after stalling her for weeks, he finally gave it to her. She verified his ACCA registration number and, to her horror, discovered that Shahzad had obtained it from LinkedIn, from someone with the same name and had been passing off that person’s professional accomplishments as his own. When her father confronted the groom’s family, they instead attacked Sabeen’s character. As for the rishta aunty, she simply responded, “It’s not my job to verify.”

Playing on people’s fears

According to Syeda Anam Ali, a counsellor and behavioural therapist with more than eight years of experience, this lack of accountability is often enabled through psychological manipulation. “Experienced matchmakers understand people’s psychology remarkably well. They know how families think, what they fear and what they are looking for in a marriage proposal. They are skilled at reading people’s emotions and insecurities.”

“People need to be told not to believe statements like, ‘Your daughter is already thirty, so she can’t get a proposal like this.’ These ideas are planted in people’s minds and once they’ve accepted them, it becomes much easier for scammers to exploit them,” she elaborated.

“If you’re in your thirties, they have a certain type of proposal for you. If you’re divorced, there’s another category. If you’re from a lower-income family, there’s another. They have an entire classification system. People are made to believe that these categories define what they deserve,” she added.

The cost of hidden truths

For Hira and Sabeen, the truth was revealed before the marriage could take place. But not everyone is that fortunate and such deception is only the beginning of a much longer emotional ordeal.

Anam, who is also a mind sciences counsellor and has counselled numerous such cases, shared how some forms of deception can have far more devastating consequences. One alarming trend she mentioned was the concealment of sexual orientation, sexual health issues or serious intimacy-related problems. In some cases, the matchmaker was fully aware of these facts but deliberately withheld them from the other family after being paid extra to do so.

“When crucial information like this is intentionally hidden before marriage, it can have devastating psychological consequences for the other person,” said Anam.

She went on to share a particularly shocking case involving a Pakistani couple living in Dubai. The matchmaker, however, was based in Karachi. According to the client, the groom had told the matchmaker before the marriage that he was bisexual and reportedly asked her not to disclose this to the bride. He even offered to pay her extra in exchange for keeping it confidential. The matchmaker accepted the money and never informed the bride, who eventually learned the truth within a month of the marriage.

“In Pakistan, many people still lack awareness about concepts such as bisexuality and that makes these situations even more complicated,” noted Anam.

The woman eventually sought a divorce, but the entire experience left her deeply traumatised. When she came to Anam for therapy, she was struggling with severe emotional distress and was even taking medication, including melatonin, to help her sleep.

“Many women who come to therapy spend years trying to recover from the trauma caused by these experiences,” she shared. “When they confront the matchmaker, they rarely receive any accountability. Instead, they are often told things like, ‘He’s financially supporting you, so what is the problem?’ That response completely ignores the emotional and psychological harm caused by the deception.”

Trust for sale

Anam even claimed that matchmakers are not oblivious to what they are doing and acknowledge the flaws in their practices. “I once discussed this issue with a well-known matchmaker during a television programme. She admitted that there are all kinds of proposals in this business, ranging from excellent matches to extremely problematic ones. The concern is that financial incentives can influence which proposals are promoted.”

One such matchmaker charges PKR 80,000 for a local rishta, PKR 100,000 for someone with a professional degree and PKR 400,000–1,500,000 for proposals from abroad.

When this scribe approached different matchmakers, their reactions followed a pattern of their own. One woman who ran a WhatsApp group of around 300 members insisted that she had created it only to ‘help’ people. She claimed to have nothing to do with the group, despite being listed as one of its administrators.

Other victims describe the same pattern playing out in different forms. *Ayesha, an Islamabad resident, paid around PKR 35,000 to join a Facebook matchmaking group that was strictly monitored by its admins, who presented themselves as professional matchmakers. She later discovered that they were reposting profiles of people who were either already married or engaged.

27-year-old *Shazia, who lives in Swat, was deceived by a rishta aunty who misrepresented both families’ profiles. She told the bride’s family that the groom’s family was independent, when it was not and told the groom’s family that the bride’s family was wealthy, when they were actually middle-class. When confronted, the matchmaker unapologetically stated, “It’s not a big deal. You can lie in the beginning and later I can clear everything up. Rishtas don’t happen without doing this.”

“In some cases, matchmakers show two sisters’ photos to one suitor and say, ‘Pick whichever one you like,’ or gather every unmarried sister in the house for ‘inspection’ when only one is meant to be seen,” lamented Shazia.

A business operating in a legal grey area

Pakistan’s matchmaking business operates with almost no regulation. There is no license required to become a matchmaker, no official list of matchmakers and no government record that separately tracks matchmaking fraud. This means victims of these scams may not even appear in official crime statistics.

According to Punjab’s own government legal portal, courts in Pakistan usually treat a broken promise of marriage as a civil matter, rather than a crime, unless someone can prove that the other person was lying intentionally from the beginning. This makes it very difficult for victims to seek justice.

According to a news report, one man was caught targeting widows and divorced women on Facebook, tricking them into fake nikahs and blackmailing one victim out of PKR 600,000.

Commodifying companionship

Asma Inayat, a psychotherapist, life coach and clinical supervisor, told this scribe how people are treated like commodities by these matchmakers. “People who arrange marriages without thinking about the long-term consequences often treat individuals like objects being exchanged rather than as people with emotions, needs and futures,” she observed.

Sharing her experience of handling cases in which such scams had a deep psychological impact on victims, Asma commented, “Betrayal begins when someone promises you something but fails to deliver it. For many people, marriage represents a stage at which they finally expect comfort, stability or even a better quality of life. When those expectations are shattered, the emotional impact becomes much deeper than the marriage itself.”

Can victims seek justice?

Farheen Zahra, Advocate of the High Court of Karachi, pointed out that victims who have proof of payment, such as receipts or bank transfer records, may file a recovery suit to reclaim money paid to a matchmaker.

Although Pakistan has no law specifically regulating matchmaking businesses, she noted that legal reforms often emerge only after such problems become widespread.

Cybercrime is a good example. Earlier, existing criminal laws were not sufficient to deal with offences committed on social media,” Farheen continued. She has expertise in civil, family, property and IP matters. “As cybercrime increased, Parliament enacted specific legislation to address those offences.”

Zeeshan Hanif, Advocate High Court, Lahore, asserted that existing laws can still apply to this problem. “If a matchmaking agency knowingly misrepresents a person’s marital status, employment, education or any other material fact to convince a client to use its services and the client relies on those representations, the agency may be held liable for fraudulent misrepresentation under Section 17 of the Contract Act, 1872.”

“Many families are reluctant to initiate litigation because they fear it may affect their reputation or expose private family matters. I believe this reluctance to report such cases is one of the biggest reasons why there has been so little legal accountability in this industry,” Zeeshan explained.

Before you say yes

“Before approaching a marriage bureau or matchmaker, families and prospective brides and grooms should understand that they are involving a third party in one of the biggest decisions of their lives. Marriage is a lifelong commitment, so every piece of information provided by a matchmaker should be independently verified,” Anam advised.

And to those who have already been burned, she offers some good advice, “Yes, you’ve walked through a dark room, but there is also a bright room ahead. The experience doesn’t define you.”

Disclaimer: This piece aims to protect young girls and boys from fraudulent ‘rishta aunties’. It is not intended to reflect on genuine matchmakers who carry out their work with sincere intentions and goodwill.

*Names have been changed to conceal identities.

Farheen Qureshi is a Karachi-based freelance journalist and a communications professional.She can be reached at [email protected]