by Surene Esterhuizen
Photo credit: Internet dictionary search
Let me just refresh your memories on what a catfish is: is a person who creates a false identity to lure (someone) into a relationship by means of a fictional online persona. Some catfish are out to scam money from their victims, or the catfish plans to kidnap or physically abuse their target. In February 2018 a man was arrested for catfishing three teenage girls over Facebook. He used two different fake name sand persuaded them to have sex with him for money. He recorded the encounters and blackmailed them into staying intimate or he will release the videos.
Max Benwell tells us all about how he tried to catch the catfish using his photos to approach women online on Instagram, Twitter, Tinder and other similar sites. It is a lengthy article, but worth the read. The catfish used the name John Sanders and his tactic was to verbally abuse women online. Luckily Max was warned by three women via Twitter about his photos being used in fake profiles and so his search for the catfish started.
Here is some signs that indicate that you are being lured by a catfish:
- The relationship / friendship progresses quickly. It is amazing how quickly they develop feelings of love and caring.
- They never want to show their face. 99% of the time they tell you that they work on an oilrig where the security is tight and they are not allowed to do video calls.
- Social media usage is sparse and, in some cases, totally non-existent.
- And then the ultimate – they ask for money. Some make you promises of all the things they will give you and suddenly, BAM! They ask you for money, because for some reason they don’t have access to their accounts while working offshore. BULL SHIT!!
- They seem too good to be true! Ladies, trust your gut!! When your gut tells you something is too good to be true, it most probably is! I mean, how many drop-dead gorgeous guys in this world will really be lonely?
- Their “job” sends them all over the world and mostly the story is that they are engineers working on oil rigs! Always somewhere where they are not always easily reachable.
- Proper grammar is lacking and if you encounter these scammers on ScrabbleGo, very few of them can do better than 3-letter words. And like hell, if they tell you they are from America, their English should be great and he should not appear uneducated, like most of them do.
- They all have similar stories: since beginning of April I cannot tell you how many scammers on the ScrabbleGO page are widowed, with small kids and the poor little ones has to live with family and / or friends so that daddy can earn a decent income to support them all. Another big lie!
For me this whole scammer-thing on the ScrabbleGo platform is unacceptable as anyone who wants to join this gaming platform, has to join through their Facebook profile. As soon as you are on the gaming app, you can change your name and your photo, even unlink your Facebook profile.
SrabbleGo is huge telling you to report and block this person and then refers you to their privacy policy, but this policy protects the scammers better than the innocent. Just join the ScrabbleGO community on Facebook and you will find regular posts of ladies telling the same story of scammers requesting games from them, and after a few 3-letter words it starts with “Hello, pretty.” and then the ultimate: are you married. I am with 6 kids!!!
But the ladies are getting more and more vigilant each day and we recognise them by now. My problem is that some of the ladies still think it is the guy on the picture trying to use the game as an online dating site. Back at the ranch, it is a lot worse than that. More about how I lured one of them into actually contacting me via video call and how I got the fright of my life in follow up article.
How do you protect yourself from these scammers?
Don’t give them the time of day!! Do a little investigation of your own. There are plenty ways that you can do it, of which some will cost you money, but the Google reverse image search is one of the most popular ways to start by searching his (or her) picture online. You might be surprised at what you find out. More proof about that later, too.
Search their names online – if you find nothing, it is really fishy – most of the times! I know only a handful of people who has no digital footprint.
Do fact checks – I asked a lot of questions and 9 out of 10 times, they contradict something they said earlier. Most of them work on rigs and telling you how dangerous it is and how deep an oilrig goes under water. They don’t even know that there is a huge difference between 12 000 fee and 3700 meters. And watch out for the similarties in questions and answers. I thought I was clever trying to catch a catfish and was chatting to the same guy under two different names, not simultatneously but shortly after “each other”. Luckily, because of the article I want to write, I didn’t delete the first scammers messages, and I could find that questions and answers were word by word exactly the same. The shock came later of the who!
Read more on Logan Buehrer’s page on How to spot a fake person online – this one is a shorter read, but the information is well worth to know.
Ladies, do not be fooled by these men … they are not who they pretend to be. They are not as gorgeous as their photo is … if they are that gorgeous, would the really need online dating options? Please, do yourself a favour and read the article on How to avoid being catfished. One of my favourite tips here is the one saying: don’t be scared to offend or make the person uncomfortable. Scarcasm also works well to get rid of them, because it is way over their inteligence span!
Also read Part 1 – Catfishing
Next article Part 3 – Interview with the devil