How to Avoid an Online Catfish (or Romance Scammer)

If you’ve ever been catfished, you know exactly how this starts. Your friend gets a message from someone who looks a lot like you but somehow isn’t. A quick search uncovers a Facebook or Instagram profile peppered in photos of you, photos that you’ve taken over the years, but statuses that you don’t recall posting.

It’s an eerie feeling, someone slowly trying to take your identity in a public forum. Before computers, this was a lot harder and a lot creepier to pull off. Now that we live in such a wild digital age, it’s easier than ever to pretend to be someone else. Everyone these days has at least one good catfishing story.

So what happens if this impostor manages to actually bamboozle people? Our digital identities can prevent us from getting jobs, getting into good schools, or can completely ruin our reputations. With just a few well-placed rocks, a good catfish can shatter any glass house they come across. Here are three options to save face after this has happened to you.

1. Delete

If you find that you’re being catfished, quickly report the offending profile and get it removed. Once it’s removed, the things the profile has posted will be gone (as long as nobody took screenshots) and you’ll be able to breathe again.

Remember, the worst threat to your online presence are the haters, and a fake profile of you will definitely rile them up if they find you posting unsavory things.

2. Beef It Up

If you find yourself on the other end of a running scam, make sure that you update your privacy settings. If anyone and their dog can get in and see your pictures, you’re not secure. You wouldn’t let just anyone into your house from off the street. Your online profiles should be no different.

If you make it easy to steal your photographs, your photographs will get stolen. If your online presence makes you money, consider adding watermarks to your photos, that way people will be able to pick out who is real and who is fake.

3. Search and Destroy

In order to keep your reputation squeaky clean, you need to be checking up on yourself. It may sound vain, but the best defense is a good offense. Screen yourself often by running a search on socialcatfish.com.

Here at Social Catfish, we specialize in managing reputations. Just run a quick search, and we’ll help you find any dummy profiles that are up and running, that way you can get rid of them before they become a problem for you.

Running a quick search here and there will prevent anything from happening that could be potentially catastrophic.

Reputations are important, especially online ones. What is shown and said on the internet stays here forever, and a gaffe perpetrated by an impostor could be dangerous.

Take your shoes off and stay awhile. Make yourself comfortable, and we’ll make sure that your online persona is doing the same.