Have you ever met someone and felt they were not who they said they were? Ever had that feeling of people online? The anonymity online emboldens many (not just the loners of myth) to do things they wouldn’t normally do, be it embellish a few details, turn abusive towards those they do not like, or worse.
Catfish, a film in which a young man builds a romantic relationship with a woman through Facebook, shows how some people use social media to take on whole new personas. It also shows how professional and amateur criminals have long used online dating for another purpose – getting money.
Types of dating-site identity scams
There are a range of common scams which may include either you being targeted for your information or having your identity stolen without your knowledge. Here are a few:
The profile scrape: Some dating sites will scrape for profile pictures off social media like Facebook, to create fake profiles to fill out their dating sites and make them more attractive to male subscribers. While the targets here are usually female, some will steal male photos too to attract female subscribers.
The catfish: This is where an individual assumes a false identity, usually assuming a totally different life using stolen images. The person can be radically different in looks, age and gender to the person they are pretending to be. This hurts the person whose photos are used, but also anyone who falls for the fake profile. Catfish tend to be fantasists and rarely use the persona to steal money.
The con artist: Unlike catfish, these people are out there pure and simple to get money out of you. This could be by running one of the old scams of where they fall in love with the victim but need money desperately for this or that problem, or to access your data and hack you or steal vital information.
Some simple steps to protecting your ID
There are a few easy steps you can take to minimize the chance of getting yourself hacked or conned by these kinds of people and groups.
The first is to check the privacy settings on your social media accounts; especially Facebook. You can choose who exactly can access your photos, friends lists and more.
Second, make similar recommendations to your friends or untag yourself from their photos if you think they might be at risk. Sadly, even if you untag your photo, your image may be at risk from being used by hackers.
Third, always exercise caution; especially if the person seems to have fallen in love with you too soon. Some are hopeless romantics, but often it’s a trick to get you to fall for them and to then get money out of you.
Fourth, never ever give your information out. The more the other person knows, the more able they are to try and hack you, or create a fake account to get a credit card from you or other information like social security.
Fifth, never send money to someone you have only met online.
What to do if your identity is stolen
Ellie Flynn, a reporter, wrote an article for Vice UK about how her photos were used to catfish people. She and her friends worry about just going out to the mall or any other public place together. Their photos were stolen, and even though they have never used a dating site, they were pasted up on various sites with different personas. Now when they go out, they run the risk of bumping into a complete stranger who thinks he knows them.
Maybe some are understanding of the issue, but most get angry when they are snubbed by someone they have been chatting with.
However, as Flynn and other victims have found out, getting websites to deal with the issue is not easy. There have been lawsuits against dating sites which steal social media photos to turn into fake profiles to boost their attractiveness to subscribers, but what else can you do?
If you find out your photo has stolen and turned into a fake Tinder account, good luck. You will need to somehow work out what Facebook profile they have created and get that taken down, which is not easy with just a photo and a first name.
Other sites can be approached individually, much like in dealing with revenge porn, and asked to remove the offending information/profiles. This only works if sites are responsible and if you can find all the profiles. At the moment, there are no laws covering the sites to ensure they behave and scrutinize their new profiles.
