06/16/2021 Catfishing Incident
Let me preface this post by saying I am in general a slightly private person and don’t usually divulge intimate details of my life but considering the magnitude of the effect this incident has had on me I want to lay it all out there.
I had been chatting with this female (or that’s what I thought they were) on a dating app for a few days. Upon finding the conversation to be meaningful we moved on to exchange phone numbers, selfies(just the face to id each other) and instagram accounts. The conversation seemed to suddenly take a turn for the worse and there it was, a bunch of fabricated images based on my instagram account, the selfies we’d previously shared, generic nudes and false inappropriate messages. Accompanied with it was a blackmail that I’d have to pay 500$ for all of this to be kept quiet.
Learnings :
- Chats on dating apps are built the way they are for a reason, don’t move to other platforms without having enough proof of the legibility of the person.
- Don’t share phone numbers / social media accounts until the prior condition is met.
- Always meet a person in the flesh before sharing such details.
Follow up steps :
- Make facebook and instagram privacy settings more stringent for my account. Disable comments, likes and tags (Done).
- Make all other public facing social media accounts private (Done)
- Remove myself from tagged posts on instagram (Done).
P.S. Yes this happened to me despite having a working knowledge of security systems, no I did not send any inappropriate pictures / messages in the conversation. Right now all of my efforts are aimed at freeing myself of the disappointment that I feel for falling for this trap but by no means does it mean I will let this deter who I am as a person and my genuine curiosity of meeting like minded people and perhaps even a special someone along the way. I appreciate all the support I’ve received from folks after my instagram post. Like one of my favorite stoic quotes postulates,
This too shall pass
