Almost Catfished

I may be lonely, but I’m not stupid.

I really love a “How it works” type-show or docu-series because it’s just fun to know weird shit. I stumbled upon a show called “Trafficked with Mariana Van Zeller” on Hulu a while back and literally watched every single episode in a week.

Mariana Van Zeller is an investigative journalist (i.e. my dream job), and the show puts her in these various situations where things are being “trafficked” or illegal activity is taking place. She gets access to some crazy shit in other countries where she could get shot for just being there, it’s f*cking wild! (i.e. NOT my dream job)

***Also, sidebar, this is not sponsored content — it really is just a thing I watched that ended up randomly helping me IRL. So it is definitely fun and pays to know weird shit so you don’t get scammed!

One episode in particular I watched was about “dating scammers” in other countries. Mariana somehow got access to these people and filmed them in the process — they blurred their faces, and showed them texting American’s with fake identities, their multiple burner phones, and showed how they would convince them to send them large amounts of cash after telling them some made up sob story. It was a bit sad, because they would say that the economy in their own country would not allow them to make enough money having a regular “legal job”, so “Scamming” was an easier way to make the money they need to live and support their families. But, they also explained that Americans are easy targets, because we’re all “lonely and unhappy with our lives” — and I have never felt more ATTACKED in my life!

A few weeks ago, I got a random DM from some military guy named “James”. I thought it was weird for anyone to slide into my DM’s, because basically, I don’t really do that shit because I’m old and tired. I’m so tired I can’t even swipe on these men anymore because I’d rather just hang with my cat and watch Netflix without being bothered… and mostly, I ignore my DMs.

Strangely, “James” was very willing to tell me all kinds of information about himself, even when I didn’t even ask! “He” also tried to ask questions about me, and I kept my responses scarce and vague… because whoooo areeee youuuu mannnn.

“James” said he was in Dubai, working for the military in some sort of daycare program, which to me immediately sounded weird…. then again, I don’t know much about the military, so whatever. Eventually, “James” tries to make me feel sad for him, by telling me that he has no family — that both of his parents died when he was young. He specifically says his father died when he was seven, in a “civil war” - his words not mine. I also start to notice the sentences had very broken English…

I look up “James” on Tiktok… which has the same videos as what he has posted on his IG. The accounts are connected to each other, and seemingly have enough followers to seem “real.” So I think, it could just be someone using content videos on both sites… people do that all the time. But then, I suddenly remember that “James” said he’s 25 years old… when I start to try to figure out what “War” his father might have died in, that’s when I started to realize this is a person who can’t get their story straight.

Me: So you said your father died in a civil war, but you are 25 years old?

James: Yes

Me: So, that’s not really possible because our Civil war was so long ago, there’s no way you could be 7 years old at the time…. you’d be really, really old right now.

James: ——No response, asks if I’ve ever been married or have any kids ——

Me: Are you confusing wars? Did you mean Desert Storm or something? Even then, you’d be almost 40?

James (including bad grammar): Yes, he die in the desert. —-sad face emoji—-

Me(Becoming more suspicious): So where did you find my profile by the way?

James: I saw that you liked a post on CNN.

Me (being an asshole): Oh that’s interesting, because normally military guys are Republican, and CNN is a democratic news outlet… lol

James: I love both Republican and Democrat women. Also, I’ve never been married and no kids.

Me (rolling my eyes so far back in my head they almost get stuck): You just said your little ones do the activity at the daycare every day… are those not your kids?

James (Ignoring my question): If you are not married, don’t you get LONELY sometimes not having a man sleeping next to you?

Here is what stopped me… the usage of the word LONELY. Remember the scammers on the show accusing Americans of being lonely and unhappy??

Me: Send me a selfie.

James (Takes 15 minutes or more) : ——Sends a selfie——

Me: ——Opens the selfie and examines——-

Now, poor “James” didn’t realize he was sending a photo to a former computer nerd who was trained at the Apple mothership in Cupertino in digital video. The image immediately has obvious signs it is NOT a current selfie at all… its cropped to a weird square pixel size (805x805) and has obvious signs of digital degradation. i.e., the kind of degradation that happens when an image is uploaded and downloaded several times and resized multiple times. The image is blurry, but not from movement — blurry from missing pixel information, sort of like what happened back in the day if you made a cassette copy of a cassette, and the songs then sounded like garbage. This shit was a copy of a copy…. and not the right pixel size to be taken on a modern smart phone.

Not so fast, “JAMES” — I may be lonely, but I’m not stupid.

So also, even though I’m nearing 40yo in two weeks (**takes deep breath**), I have seen many an episode of MTV’s Catfish, including the original film that sparked the whole usage of the term. So I take “James” photo and upload it to a site called Social Catfish (**Again, not sponcon, just linking the tools) and did a reverse image search which I learned from watching Nev and his buddies on the show.

After about 20 mins, the image came up with over 400 matches…. on various dating and p*rn sites, in probably ten different countries. There were even more images the site was able to match using some sort of facial recognition software. Not bad, random Social Catfish site — such technology!

Eventually, I see a sub reddit thread called “Scammers United” that I clicked on…

This page listed every version of this person’s name they had used, all the sites they were on, screenshots of messages showing his “usual scam” all by different women AND men. I’m talkin’ like 14 pages worth of information…. all stating he would claim he was working for the military and needed cash because he had been “stranded” in another country with no way home.

I couldn’t tell if anyone who was posting had actually sent this person money, but it seemed like it was almost scripted what “James” would say to each person. Again, this was a thing I saw in the Trafficked show, the scammers would use a script or typical story — because it would help them to keep their lies straight!

Some posts on this subreddit thread even included an IP address they managed to trace, indicating he (or she, or whomstever) was in fact, in Nigeria — one of the countries shown on the show!

So of course, I blocked the IG account and reported them even though they never asked me for money — I couldn’t NOT report them after seeing all the people “James” tried to scam. I would not be ok if this happened to one of my friends who wasn’t as cynical, untrusting and suspicious as I am… I mean, I guess I can be thankful to all the ex boyfriends I have who made me question everything that’s ever come out of a man’s mouth?

I just never thought someone would try to “Scam” me like this… and, so quickly too!

I started to wonder if the poor guy in the pictures and videos even know his content id being stolen and reposted across the internet as a lying sack of garbage…. Some of the photos also have children in them, which is another whole level of doxing!

Take this as a warning that even if you aren’t on dating apps, people are doing desperate things to get at your money — no one is safe just living their lives on IG or FB!

Have you ever been catfished? Or has anyone like this ever DMd you?!?