Episode 4 - Catfish for everyone

You get a catfish, and you get a catfish, blah blah blah Catfish. Today, we talk about catfishing and the exciting experiences I've had, as well as what others have seen.

I will also bring up facecheck.id as a means to validate photos

Hey everyone, and I’m back. I like to start off these podcasts with level-setting. This is not a relationship advice podcast, this is more about humor and dating in my 40’s and things I’ve experienced. These podcasts will range from 5-10 minutes. Though, I admit I suspect this may go slightly over 10, but let’s see how we do.

I think one of the scariest things of on-line dating is the inability to see someone and read their body language. For most people a large part of being able to communicate effectively is looking at body language. The ticks, ways people look at things says a lot about how they may truly feel when speaking to you.

When you’re sitting behind a screen it’s hard gauge honesty and emotion with the other person you’re speaking with. As much as this world depends on technology to do a lot of work in communication there is nothing like face to face. Unfortunately, that’s not life for dating now. Most people use a dating app of some kind to meet others that are outside of their social circle, because usually you’re not trying to date a friend.

Now, why do I bring all this up? Because these things make romance catfishing a prime market for scammers. There’s all kinds of catfishing, by definition is when someone uses images and information to create a new identity online and pass themselves off as the stolen identity. The way we are going to discuss this around romance, because, this is dating in your forties.

Let’s talk high-level statistics around romance catfishing I gathered from various relationship papers:

Men are more likely to catfish than women (shocking)
41% of US online adults said they’ve been catfished
Romance scams cost people 201 million dollars last year, which is insane
Women are most likely targeted
25-34 years are most likely targeted by catfishers

Okay, enough with the depressing statistics, let’s talk about some real world examples. I wish I could take credit for all of these. Here are some things I’ve experienced, high percentage of these happened to be on the Hinge dating app:

One person messaged this to me after we chatted VERY briefly, And I’m reading this verbatim, poor grammar and all:
- You are the only person I have added contact information to in Hinge, I was talking to a girl and the day after I spoke to her she asked me to send her a gift and wanted me to put $2000 in the gift, Because of a great change in her family, he and she need the money. I feel that helping others is helping myself, because everyone has difficulties. My parents taught me to help others since I was a child, so I chose to send it to her and hope she can get through this difficulty. But the next day I couldn’t see her message anymore and I didn’t expect to delete me, which confuses me. My assistant told me she was just a black woman chatting to me pretending to be an American. I don’t talk to her anymore and I can tell you I hate cheating, especially for my sympathy. This is my first time using online dating, I have not used any other dating apps

So this message…I Just have so many questions. WHY WOULD ANYONE tell me this? We’ve barely spoken and this message is a giant red flag that they aren’t real. So I told him something like, “Yeah I have this guy who keeps trying to get me to buy cryptocurrency, I don’t know why people are such liars” and then I never heard from him again.

Another person who I was messaging back and forth with had asked for my number, so I gave it to them, don’t worry we’ll touch on handing out phone numbers in a second:

And we were chatting back and forth for a few days. And I suspected it was someone trying to catfish me, but sometimes I like to play with people and just see how far they’ll take things. Then he messages me asking me to join Telegram. And this is how that conversation went:

Me: No, I don’t have telegram and no I will not be installing a new app, I’m fine just texting on the phone

Them: SMS is what I usually use at work, my assistant will often use my SMS to deal with work orders, some messages I will ignore and cannot reply in time

Me: This is a text, not a phone call, just reply when you can

Them: When our relationship becomes better, I can introduce my family and friends to you more conveniently. If you just want to keep in touch with me by SMS, but do not want to know my friends and family, I think it will be meaningless for this relationship to continue. I believe we are interested in each other, which is also the beginning of fate. So I cherish every encounter. Think about it.

Ok...so that whole spiel is so hilarious since we’ve legit spoken for a few days

I responded: Okay, bye. I will not be manipulated into signing up for a separate app for a man I’ve never met.

Then you know, I did the reasonable thing, deleted and blocked his number

And one more example from me because this is just too hilarious this guy and I were chatting for about a week and it was normalish, but I was super suspicious of this guy on day 2, but you know, I’m new, I want to play around and see where it goes. On the last day we communicated we had been exchanging photos of food (I’m a foodie and supposedly so is he) and I sent a picture of a kimchi pancake I had made for lunch. And he responded:

Oh wow, Kimchi is famous.

Now in my head the mental ellipses are blinking…because…wtf? And part of my playing around with this person was I asked them what kind of food they grew up eating, because that can tell you a lot. And supposedly, this individual had grown up in Texas, so I’m expecting a response around tex-mex, barbecue, you know something that is synonymous with Texas cuisine. His response had been bread and meat. Which cracked me up and obviously made it very clear they were not from Texas. I had some more fun with that, but I have other examples to give so we’ll skip over that.

Back to the kimchi comment. I told him that I made the kimchi and told him part of my heritage is Korean. He then said he was have Singaporean…now that’s weird…because on his profile he had claimed he was American Indian. So I followed up with, if he was a US Citizen or Singaporean…he said he had dual… which made me laugh because Singapore doesn’t recognize dual citizenship past the age of 22. At the age of 22 if you do hold dual you have two pick one. I mentioned this to him and he tried to say I was wrong…I’m not. And this isn’t because I’m never wrong, I just wasn’t wrong about that.

So then for funnies, I asked him, what’s the other half? And he said American Indian, so I asked, “what tribe are you from?” And he responded. “There’s no more tribe” which made me laugh so hard because…you know…there are tribes and he is welcome to join the council as long as there is proof of lineal decendency or Other conditions such as tribal blood quantum, tribal residency, or continued contact with the tribe.

Now, if I hadn’t already suspected he was trying to catfish me that whole conversation was glaring. He then proceeded to ask me if I would be interested in buying $1000 worth of crypto…

Yeah so all three of those incidences happened within a week, which made me laugh and delete Hinge because I just couldn’t figure if anyone that had reached out to me was real.

Now I want to share some other experiences women have had:

Wanting to be your sugar daddy when it’s not something you’ve expressed interest in
Anyone asking for you to take money and "give some back to them" no matter what the circumstance it's a scam.
if anyone asks for money or investment of any sort, it's a scam especially when they claim their cryptocurrency investors or day traders. I don’t not believe that people have these jobs and make money, I just don’t believe they are going onto dating apps to “share their wealth of knowledge”
Any time you see a job you don’t recognize or aren’t familiar with swipe left or swipe left if this individual claims to be a CEO of some random company you’ve never heard of, could be true, but would they be on a dating app?
Ones who say, after a couple back and forth messages, that they are barely in the app and can we talk on another social app like What’s App, Telegram, Signal, etc
Photos of very very good looking men in locales that are clearly not local to you, usually aren’t legit, especially if the photo looks professionally done. Now I’m not saying they aren’t real, but it’s weird to not have some selfies. I admit my profile has some professionally taken photos of my travels, but I do sprinkle in legit selfies I’ve done myself
Man who hasn’t verified his photos through the dating app you’re on. Most dating apps have a real-time verification system. This authentication system detects your face and extracts facial geometries using facial recognition technology to use again the photos you’ve uploaded to verify you are the same person in those photos. Now, not doing this doesn’t mean you aren’t you, but in away it gives a signal that you are seriously looking to date and want to make sure people know it really is you and not a catfish.
Weird mixed of religion and politics, someone mentioned this (on hinge at least) like “Buddhist and conservative” or “Catholic and liberal”
If you've been talking to someone for a while. Doesn't matter how long and They ask you to buy them a ticket to see you. DON'T. Don't pay for travel or calls or anything.
A way that someone mentioned she tries to get proof is she always request some sort of silly photo that they take specifically for her. Something like a picture of a shoe on their head or spoon on their nose
My favorite way to identify a possible catfish is odd phrasing and wording in their profiles. Here are some of my favorites:
1. “Piety to parents is important to me”
1. “I am pleasing to meet you for a date.”
1. I am an honest man <— Okay, I know this one doesn’t sound catfishy, I just don’t trust people start with I’m an honest anything
1. My favorite of all freaking time: “The spring sun rushes in to calm the tides of yonder breaks! Fortnights carry my love for thee.” Why would any person put that in their dating profile

That being said, there’s something about romantic and lyrical language that may attract women, but that’s a different conversation to be had.

A site I actually used to verify pictures is a site called, facecheck.id and I’ve added the actual link in my podcast description so you can see it, but I’ve used to validate photos of people because you may be surprised how many people who have swiped on me who were totally fake. And I’m not sure if I should take this as an affront where perhaps my images suggest I’m desperate and foolable, but I wouldn’t say I’m unattractive, but I will say I have a young and naive looking face. Little do they know.

Another tidbit I’d like to share is get yourself a google number. These are great, you can text, you can call, and it’s loads safer than handing out your real one.

To close this out,

Never give out personal information to anyone you don’t know.

Do not share your financial data, credit card details, passwords, address, or other details that a catfish might use to blackmail or manipulate you.

If you do find yourself falling for someone online, protect yourself. Meet them in person in a public setting, or talk to them on the phone or use a video call beforehand. I know it’s hard especially when you feel like there is a connection and a deep one at that, but try to protect your heart until further validation can be done. When you see this person and can talk to them…and read their body language…and see if they’re genuine.

I’m not saying this will protect you 100% because some people are sociopaths and are damn good at lying, but sometimes you have to take a chance and it’s better off in person.

I hope you got a good laugh at some of this, but I hope you also take some of these learnings into consideration as you continue your own online dating journey. Next week we will talk about why the first message you send someone can have a profound impact. Expect the next episode to be filled with the most ridiculous first messages I’ve received.

Dating in your 40's

Episode 4 - Catfish for everyone

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