Have you ever been catfished?

[DuchessAimee]

So some random guy slips into my DMs on IG. His pic is model perfect and doesn't look anything like the age he says he is. The name he told me to call him is Kevin even though the name on the account says Kelvin. He wouldn't acknowledge that he had three pics and in one of them he's wearing the name tag saying "Adam".

So knowing he is a catfish from the get go I decided to talk to anyway wondering if he'd admit it at some point. However, I got more and more angry because I know I'm not his first "catch". I confronted him about the pics... Oh! I forgot to say he deleted the pic I was talking about, and then told me he never posted anything like that. AND he tried to gaslight me about all the things I confronted him about. So I said "let's video chat". He actually said he would. At first the screen was just his profile pic, but then I saw his face! He started talking to me with a heavy accent and turned the cam off. I confronted him and proceeded to have a circular conversation. If you want more details, message me.

This guy is a bad catfish. I mean really bad. Maybe he is new to the game, but I'm pretty sure a 5 year old could do a better job. He must have had a bad teacher or didn't pay attention at the training sessions.

So! Have any of you been catfished? What happened? How did it happen?

 

[melita916]

I was never catfished. I was ghosted though. Emailed/texted/talked on the phone with a guy for about a year. I never video chatted because I was the one who didn’t want to. We talked about meeting after he returned from deployment. As his return date got closer, the communication became less and less until he stopped responding.

 

[Lanolin]

what? please explain I dont even know what you are talking about. I have never heard of being catfished.

 

[laughingheart]

I had one fellow message me, "Hi. I am a doctor with a fancy car and lots of money. I mean a lot." After I finished laughing I wrote back, "I am going to tell your mom what you are doing." I had an immediate response. "I am a real doctor but please don't call my mom." It was classic. I was only on line for a short time but it was an education lol

 

[Subhumanoidal]

Yep. On here. Years ago. I quickly realized something was off, but couldn't prove anything.
After a while she popped up as someone I may know on fb. Investing her page (she told me she didn't have fb) I learned a lot of what she told me was opposite of reality. And she withheld some major information.
She had kept telling me God wanted us together, though I wouldn't date her. Within a few months of my confronting her she moved out of state to be with another man. So clearly I wasn't the only one she was talking to.

 

[Pipp]

I had a very similar situation on IG. I knew from the start he wasn't "Thomas" , but i continued the short conversation for a little bit until I got sick and he sent me a voice message to check on me and his voice was very clearly Nigerian. I called him out on it.. had a long talk and he admitted that it was his job to find women on the internet to scam.

 

[seoulsearch]

I've been ghosted several times but never officially catfished.

The closest thing to it was a younger guy with model-quality photos who started writing to me regularly. Maybe I'm just paranoid but I never trust overly perfect pictures. When I asked about them, he laughed it off and said, "My sister is a photographer and can make anyone look like a model."

But another telltale sign was that one of his pictures was topless (as in, he wasn't wearing a shirt), and showed "him" making a perfectly propped pose with an ax and a pile of firewood. At the same time, he said he struggled with lust, but that women were always approaching him with propositions and he was finding it tough to avoid the temptation.

I just said, "Well, if you don't want to attract that kind of attention, you might want to make sure you're fully dressed in your pictures."

Eventually the truth came out. He sent me a picture of the "real" him (supposedly), and he wasn't bad-looking at all, but he definitely was not the person in those pictures. To top it all off, he confessed that he was actually married (claiming he had met his wife on that site) but still wanted to meet people to supposedly be friends with. I tried to encourage him to be honest with people and wished him the best after signing off permanently.

I'm certainly not above being catfished -- I just try to be realistic. I've mentioned in other threads that I know I don't attract models, jocks, CEO's, doctors, or lawyers in real life, so I am extremely doubtful that I would attract anyone like that online. But I find that many people who think they can date 5 steps up above their league will do anything to believe what they've found is real (and of course it can be, but certainly not very often.)

When it comes to catfishing, my biggest challenge is actually watching others in the middle of being catfished but refuse to believe it until they get their hearts blown to smithereens. In almost every case where I felt obligated to try to warn someone about a suspected catfish, several other people were also trying to warn them, so it wasn't just a case of gossiping or trying to ruin someone's reputation -- it was a matter of trying to prevent someone from getting hurt. However, not a single person ever believed and usually just told me I was jealous. (The less noble part of me wanted to say, "Jealous, of what? Being a sucker?"

I can understand it. I remember one person who asked me if I had solid proof that this person wasn't who she said she was and of course I didn't, whereas he felt he had plenty of proof of what she was telling him through pictures and phone calls. (Plot twist -- catfish might be sending you pictures, but that doesn't mean the pictures are of them.)

But I can't think of a single case in which the person came back and said, "Ha ha ha, you were wrong!!! I met this person and they were everything I ever hoped for!!" I remember a situation a long time ago in which someone tried to say the person they were talking to was real because this person had "appeared on camera." Further conversation brought out the fact that ONLY the other person's HANDS had actually been on camera holding a sign saying, "I love you (with the other person's name written in)", but that was enough to convince this poor smitten soul.

After everything is said and done, catfish victims then go through all the stages of grief as with a normal breakup and want to tell you every last detail about it, as well as obsessing over who else this other person was talking to and what information about themselves they were sharing with others. I feel terrible for them, but I also have to admit to being slightly frustrated that they didn't listen to the warning signs in the first place, especially if it was from multiple independent sources. But, we're all human.

It's gotten to the point where I debate over whether or not I should even say anything when I suspect someone is in the middle of being tangled up in a line, because from my experience, they're just going to call everyone who tries to warn them a liar and keep right on going with it until it's too late... Wanting comfort over something everyone was trying to help them avoid in the first place.

 

[Lanolin]

Ok I looked it up.
well not but there was one guy on a christian forum, not this one, who I got to chatting with and turns out he had some gender identity issues as well as being somewhat schizophrenic. He would create lots of different IDS but it turns out he was a trust fund kid but wanted to believe he was the illegitimate offspring of a rock star or something. He was adopted. I dont know it was hard to keep up. lol

Made for some interesting chats, but the sad thing he got suicidal at one point and I had to talk him out of it, and got so concerned that I actually contacted his wife. He was brilliant and a genius but also, when he was drunk or on nyquil, completely out of it. Hard to tell online. He had four kids. I dont know why he was chatting to me but was just looking for fellowship I guess. I had some issues I was dealing with and he was quite empathetic with that and just needed someone to talk to. I dont know i can deal with crazy as Ive kind of been there before. But not schizo crazy just manic crazy.

iS that what is considered catfishing? It was harmless if catfishing is your regular occupation i.e you are an actor or some sort of computer hacker. But truly some people are paranoid. I dont think ppl really have the time to go through all your stuff and steal your identity, but schizophrenics do believe this happens quite strongly, and only to them, because sometimes, they really do believe they are God.

 

[zeroturbulence]

One time I was washing my hands in the locker room at the gym and there was this young man standing a few feet away leaning on the counter thing where you can put your gym bag or whatever and he had his head down like he was thinking about something. He must have been a professional model because he looked like he just stepped out of a men's fitness magazine, but I don't mean big muscles. I mean toned, sinewy muscle and he had that perfect healthy glow and a face that you'd find in a Ralph Lauren ad. Don't worry I'm not gay. I'm just wondering how many times women must have thought he was catfishing them. Although I think people who are that good-looking don't spend a lot of time on social media.

 

[mailmandan]

I've been ghosted several times but never officially catfished.

Interesting terms. I know what it means to be "ghosted" but what does it mean to be "catfished?"

 

[mailmandan]

I think that most everyone is of the opinion that catfishing -- presenting oneself in a deceitful manner in which they are usually trying to appear better off (whether in regards to looks, success, commitment, etc.) than they actually are -- is wrong.

Question asked and answered. Instantly makes me think of dating websites.

 

[Lynx]

Although I think people who are that good-looking don't spend a lot of time on social media.

I dunno... there might be a few on this very forum. They might get tired of people focusing on their looks, so they come to an internet forum where they can be known for their wit and wisdom.

But if there are, we'll never know. They wouldn't be posting pictures of themselves.

 

[Lanolin]

thinking back on this I did pray for him and did stop chatting to him after it got a bit too intense.

He had some weird ideas about the end of the world and apocalypse and was quite certain the world would end - his wife was a former Jehovahs Witness and he somehow had picked up on their doctrines. But I had to say no the world does not look like its ending soon. Well not from my part of it anyway.

I think God did a work on him though and I hope he's got peace now. Maybe it gave him solace to chat with someone who could have even crazier ideas than himself. ?!

Who says christians cant be a little crazy?

 

[mailmandan]

Catfishing in action.

 

[Adstar]

I think anyone can be catfished.. Some people are really good at it..

I once came into contact with a person o another site that was called "experience project" That was set up for people to give advice to others.. Not a religous site but a chat site with other addons..

Anyway this person presented themselves as a 12 year old girl with a divorced dad and hinted at being abused by their dads best friend. The dad was also described in a way that you could conclude he was a psychopath.. Abusive in the physical way but not sexual.. Anyway this person had me talking with her advising and consoling her for around a year.. They even had videos to share of a Girl ( reportedly her ) playing with a dog in the snow and another of her walking around her neighborhood with a friend interviewing people..

She used to write blogs about her experiences and that was the first indication to me that the person may not have been a 12 year old girl.. Her righting seems way too good for a girl of 12.. There came a point where her brother got onto her account and i told him to get off because it was his sisters account and thus personal.. Well the person replied in a very angry response that it did not matter who they where, that they could be anyone and that it did not matter who they where....

Well that finally broke the spell they had on me.. Suddenly the 12 year old girl victim of abuse no longer existed.. It is weird to mourn the loss of a person who never existed.. I now suspect the person was the mother of the girl in the video's who for what ever reason wanted to present herself as a poor little girl who was a victim of abuse to garner sympathy and attention..

People should realize that in this form of communication this kind of scam can be done and some people for what ever reason engage in it and they can be very very good at misleading others in their web of lies..

 

[Lanolin]

yea the person who I was chatting to got VERY angry that I contacted his wife about him when he was talking about ending it all.
I mean what else was I going to do? Think he was kidding me the entire time? My thing is to assume people are being honest rather than to assume everyone I meet is a liar.

 

[Tinkerbell725]

An obvious scammer messaged me saying he was a soldier deployed in Afghanistan. When I asked him if he was a scammer, he replied and said "why would I scam you?"

I told him, stop scamming people because Jesus is coming soon. I will pray for you but I will block you now. Goodbye.

These nigerian scammers use voodoo to scam their victims.
Their targets are mostly vulnerable divorced women.
Their voodoo works because the victims send them money and can't seem to wake up from the spell.

 

[PennEd]

Umm reading this thread has made me wonder what the heck is the point in cat fishing?
Seems like a colossal waste of time. Unless they just get a kick out of it. They must realize that sooner or later they are going to be found a liar when you finally meet them.

 

[Lynx]

The point is either entertainment or money. Catfishing is usually for entertainment. Catphishing is for money.

 

[PennEd]

The point is either entertainment or money. Catfishing is usually for entertainment. Catphishing is for money.

In my day, the point of cat fishing was for dinner! We used chicken livers as bait to great effect.