Are you being catfished? Here’s an easy way to check
I’d heard of the term catfish before. I got it, but I guess unless you’ve had firsthand experience of something it doesn’t really sink in. I hadn’t until this week.
My encounter with a creep of a catfish began with a friend request on Facebook from a ‘Simon Frankish’.
I’m pretty strict about accepting people on Facebook, it’s for my personal life, I keep it close. My rule is, if I wouldn’t stop to say hello if we passed each other in the street then we aren’t going to be friends. Now, this friend request was clearly someone I’d never laid eyes on before, I’m not going to lie, in the few pictures on his profile this guy looked hot. I mean next level good looking. Too good to be true in fact. Immediately my suspicions were raised. The addition of cute cats and puppies being cuddled by said topless hottie set my alarm bells ringing too!
There’s no way a guy like that would be interested in me. The messages that I received alongside the friend request said otherwise though. He said he was new to the area and was looking to meet people. This guy was complimenting me, asking me out for a drink and was straight in there with the dick pics (which were blatantly straight from a google image search)!
A little snoop around this saddos profile made it even clearer, there were over 1000 ‘friends’ 99.9% of which were young women. Lots in and around the area I live. Lots of “OMG you’re so gorgeous” comments from said women on his pics and no extra info on his job, family etc. Now I’m pretty tech savvy and not one to shy away from a challenge and the thought of catching out a creepy catfish have me a bit of a buzz. I hopped straight over to Google and set to work. A quick name search brought up nothing. There was no evidence of him on other social accounts so I pulled out my final and favourite tactic. A Google image search. I was genuinely surprised by how few people knew about this clever little trick. Yes, Google can voice and text search, but you can also search with an image which brings up results for when that photo has been used elsewhere on the internet.
And bingo! Sure enough, there was the same absolute hottie, except not as Simon Frankish. The poor chap whose photos had clearly been stolen was actually Chad White, a model and actor from New York.
I probably should have left it there, but I couldn’t help but think how many women may have fallen for this desperate excuse for a man and others like him.*
What if I had actually gone to meet him? How many others have? What would he have done?
*I should probably add that catfish can be us ladies too! So guys also beware.
My first job was to comment on all of his pictures with a link to the real guys social page so the other girls could see it. Next I shared it in a rather large local Facebook group that I’d noticed he was also a member of before taking to my other social accounts on Twitter and Instagram to warn others. I waited a while before reporting his account to Facebook in the hope he’d be humiliated by my fellow Facebookers! My final step was to contact the real owner of the images and tell him about his imbecile impersonator.
For those who are concerned about this or have suspicions about someone who is messaging you. Here are my top tips for unearthing the catfish:
- Before responding, have a thorough check of their profile. If it looks dodgy it probably is.
2. Check on other social accounts for people under the same name. People share so much on there, you can find out all sorts. Stick the name in Google too to check for other links.
3. The image search rules! Take a copy of their profile picture and stick it into Google. If it appears anywhere else it’ll lead you straight to your answer.
4. Most importantly, don’t give away any personal information to anyone you don’t know, unless you know they’re legit.
