A Kambah woman is no longer on Tinder after a man she met over the hook-up app stole her car and ATM card from under her nose the morning after they spent the night together.
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"This is a Tinder date disaster," prosecutor Maclaren Wall told the ACT Magistrates Court on Friday.
"Instead of stealing her heart, the defendant stole her car."
The woman had been using the hook-up app on July 10 last year when she matched with Vittorio William Guida, 39.
They messaged for a while and it was ultimately agreed he would come over to her place. He arrived at about 10.30pm and introduced himself: "Just call me V".
"We proceed to do what to do when you meet up on Tinder," the woman later told police.
When they woke the next morning, Guida asked for a lift to Tuggeranong. The woman agreed, but after she had reversed her car out of the garage Guida said he thought he had left his wallet on the bedside table.
The woman went in to retrieve it for him.
But the request appeared to have been a ruse because the woman could not find the wallet. She turned back around to go and ask Guida if he was sure that was where he had left it.
"By the time I got to the front door the car was down the street," she told police.
That day, police were patrolling when they spotted the car in front of a home in Flynn.
Guida produced the car key and said the woman had allowed him to borrow it for a couple of days. When he was searched, police found he had her ATM card in his pocket, which he said he had been keeping safe for her after finding it in the car.
He had pleaded not guilty to charges of dishonestly taking a motor vehicle and minor theft.
But on Friday, Magistrate Louise Taylor rejected Guida's version of events as incredible and found him guilty of both charges.
The victim earlier told the court that while she did then, she no longer uses Tinder.
Ms Taylor will sentence Guida in May.
