From friendships to romance, the internet has opened the door to countless ways of connecting with people. But that same freedom also gives anyone the chance to lie, hide, and pretend to be someone they’re not.
Redditors from different threads shared their catfishing experiences—whether they were the ones deceived or the ones doing the deceiving. The stories range from shocking to heartbreaking, with a few even ending on a surprisingly positive note. Scroll down to read them all, and remember to be cautious about who you trust online.
#41
Didn't date (she was in america I live in the UK) but was texting a lass for a couple of months and She used pictures of a petite white girl, turns out she was an obese African american girl. Personality wise she was great and we got on well and I probably could have continued talking to her if he hadn't done that. I guess it was a trust thing? Only worked it out because I watched an episode of Catfish and reverse searched her pictures for bants. Turns out the pictures were from a girl in her school the reverse search put them to her FB account with a different name to the one she used for me. I messaged the lass saying her pictures had been used by a classmate, got a response like 4 years later. God growing up in a rural area led you to do s**t like talk to strangers online... why wasn't I just f**ping at night??
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5points
#42
I discovered my friend was a catfish when he became someone else's catfish-ee. I used to go on online message boards when I was in high school, and became friends with a user who said he was a 21-year-old cop from LA. We became gamer friends and played a lot of multiplayer games together.
A few years later, another user from the message board created an instant messenger account pretending to be a girl. They added a ton of people from the board, trying to troll them. For some reason, my friend fell for it and flirted pretty heavily with this 'girl' until the catfisher went back to the forum and spilled the beans. It was revealed that my friend, who should have been a now-25-year-old cop from LA, was actually a 20-year-old guy from Canada. He was only 16 when we first started chatting! I guess he was pretty embarrassed, because he went completely dark.
He disappeared from the servers, never popped online, never logged back into the forums. I was fooled for a good four years, but honestly, I didn't care that much. He was a fun guy to play and chat with.
A few years later, another user from the message board created an instant messenger account pretending to be a girl. They added a ton of people from the board, trying to troll them. For some reason, my friend fell for it and flirted pretty heavily with this 'girl' until the catfisher went back to the forum and spilled the beans. It was revealed that my friend, who should have been a now-25-year-old cop from LA, was actually a 20-year-old guy from Canada. He was only 16 when we first started chatting! I guess he was pretty embarrassed, because he went completely dark.
He disappeared from the servers, never popped online, never logged back into the forums. I was fooled for a good four years, but honestly, I didn't care that much. He was a fun guy to play and chat with.
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5points
#43
So, when MySpace was the popular social networking website, I decided to create a fake person. I had my own personal profile and within two years of being on it, I had about 140 or so friends. More than 75% were friends, co-workers, and family. The rest were random girls that added me.
One of my friends took a shirtless selfie right out of the pool and posted it. You would have thought he was the best looking guy in the world because girls were just eating it up.
At the time, I was having trouble getting dates. Just frustrated with it all, I found some guys profile who lived thousands of miles away(not even sure how I found it) He was very attractive, so I saved all of his pictures. I made this kick a*s profile, gave him a fake name and backstory and up it went. I had to go to work that afternoon(1pm-8pm).
So, I go to work, get back around 8:30pm. Grab something out of my fridge and realized I created that profile. I literally forgot about it. I logged in and in less than eight hours, this guy had 440 new friend requests and well over 200 messages. I put his age as 19 and he had women as old as 45 messaging him. One said that he could date her daughter, but wanted them two to fool around first. It was insane.
Within two days, this poor dude had close to 1,000 new friends. I could not keep up with the messages. I did message the guy's real profile to let him know that if he was ever in the area, he could have his pick of women. He found it hilarious but said:
"Impressive...but...I'm gay."
A few years ago, I tried something similar with Tinder. Made a fake Facebook account, used someone else's pictures and downloaded a GPS changer and set it Winnipeg, Manitoba. Within a week, I had over 600 matches.
That's all I have to contribute.
Edit: If you ever talked to an "Alex" on MySpace or a "Brett" on Tinder, that was me...Sorry...
One of my friends took a shirtless selfie right out of the pool and posted it. You would have thought he was the best looking guy in the world because girls were just eating it up.
At the time, I was having trouble getting dates. Just frustrated with it all, I found some guys profile who lived thousands of miles away(not even sure how I found it) He was very attractive, so I saved all of his pictures. I made this kick a*s profile, gave him a fake name and backstory and up it went. I had to go to work that afternoon(1pm-8pm).
So, I go to work, get back around 8:30pm. Grab something out of my fridge and realized I created that profile. I literally forgot about it. I logged in and in less than eight hours, this guy had 440 new friend requests and well over 200 messages. I put his age as 19 and he had women as old as 45 messaging him. One said that he could date her daughter, but wanted them two to fool around first. It was insane.
Within two days, this poor dude had close to 1,000 new friends. I could not keep up with the messages. I did message the guy's real profile to let him know that if he was ever in the area, he could have his pick of women. He found it hilarious but said:
"Impressive...but...I'm gay."
A few years ago, I tried something similar with Tinder. Made a fake Facebook account, used someone else's pictures and downloaded a GPS changer and set it Winnipeg, Manitoba. Within a week, I had over 600 matches.
That's all I have to contribute.
Edit: If you ever talked to an "Alex" on MySpace or a "Brett" on Tinder, that was me...Sorry...
4points
#44
I got catfished twice, once on OKCupid and once on Plenty of Fish.
The first time, the girl was completely different from the pictures. Different hair, different face, different teeth, different eyes, but no more or less attractive. She had clearly been the person I was talking to, and I never drew attention to the fact that she had clearly used someone else's photos. She didn't either. It was a pretty good date, but I didn't want to encourage false advertising, so there was no second date.
The second time, it was clearly someone who had used every single trick in the book to seem half the weight that she was. High-angle photos, old photos, she listed several sports (that I participate in) as her hobbies, and then on the date, she was easily a hundred and fifty pounds bigger than she appeared in any of the photos. I'm usually ok with bigger women, but I draw the line at "I can't pick you up without throwing my back out". It's just personal preference. Like the first one though, I really don't like false advertising, and made sure to include at least one less-flattering photo of myself on my profile so nobody would be surprised. She was a really nice lady, so I felt obligated to let her make the choice to not go out again by telling her that I wasn't really looking for a long-term relationship at the moment, and that if she was down for something more casual, that was fine with me. She wasn't, and we never talked again.
The first time, the girl was completely different from the pictures. Different hair, different face, different teeth, different eyes, but no more or less attractive. She had clearly been the person I was talking to, and I never drew attention to the fact that she had clearly used someone else's photos. She didn't either. It was a pretty good date, but I didn't want to encourage false advertising, so there was no second date.
The second time, it was clearly someone who had used every single trick in the book to seem half the weight that she was. High-angle photos, old photos, she listed several sports (that I participate in) as her hobbies, and then on the date, she was easily a hundred and fifty pounds bigger than she appeared in any of the photos. I'm usually ok with bigger women, but I draw the line at "I can't pick you up without throwing my back out". It's just personal preference. Like the first one though, I really don't like false advertising, and made sure to include at least one less-flattering photo of myself on my profile so nobody would be surprised. She was a really nice lady, so I felt obligated to let her make the choice to not go out again by telling her that I wasn't really looking for a long-term relationship at the moment, and that if she was down for something more casual, that was fine with me. She wasn't, and we never talked again.
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4points
#45
I catfished people to get them to buy me Steam games. I have $600 worth of Steam games now.
1point
