Getting catfished is the ultimate fail of online dating, even worse than receiving a seemingly endless stream of rejections. You’re catfished if you fall for someone you meet online, who doesn’t actually exist. Imagine the pain of announcing to the world that you’ve found love on the Internet, only to find out you were being played by a teenage girl with a crush on your profile picture.
There are some strange and lonely people out there who get their kicks by creating fake online personas, backing them up with a social media account or online dating profile, and then going fishing for singles. They may be insecure, attached, or just love the thrill of the chase. A really convincing catfish can keep an online relationship going for months, by creating a convincing backstory and inventing reasons to avoid meeting in person.
Take these tips to avoid becoming a catfishing victim.
When you chat online with someone, the person typing messages to you could be anyone. If you speak on the phone, you can at least verify that the voice roughly matches the age and gender of your new beau. Skype is the next best thing to meeting in person. Everyone has Skype, or at least has temporary access to Skype to make a quick call. Be wary of anyone who says that they don’t have a single friend who can help them make a Skype call to you.
It’s natural for anyone using a free dating site to be safety conscious, but if you are considering starting a relationship with someone, it’s time they revealed their real name. Once they have trusted you with this personal information, you need to get to work investigating everything you can about them. Google, Facebook and Twitter are good places to start. If you do find a credible profile, don’t rest on your laurels, they could still be a catfish. Grab a photo and use a reverse image search on Google to see if that image has been used to set up other profiles under different names. If you come up with multiple profiles for the same image, then you’ve caught yourself a catfish. Also be wary of profiles that have very few photographs on, or have few friends or followers.
Once you’ve found out a little more about them through their online profiles, add this information to their name to perform a more detailed search. For example, most people list their place of work on their Facebook profile, so if you Google ‘name+work’, you may get some results from a company website that helps prove this person is real. You may also find out more information by comparing the profile from the dating site to the information on social media accounts. Contradictions between accounts doesn’t necessarily mean they are a catfish, but should serve as a warning to you.
Be suspicious if the other person claims to move around a lot, has an erratic work pattern, and basically refuses to commit to a meeting. Do not consider yourself to be in a relationship with this person until you have met them to confirm they really exist.