Nobody actually wants to talk to me. They’re just like, “hey, you scammed me,” or “hey, I found this fake profile”. I can’t escape it.
So how has this affected you professionally?I am sure there are thousands and thousands of dollars of my content that’s been sold that I did not make-but I used to dedicate a lot of time to it, mainly because I was sick and tired of people bitching at me as if I had something to do with it. They acted like I could click my fingers and they’d all be gone forever.
So I had this personal guilt and would spend hours on end searching for people, reporting them. I would go through my DMs, see what they were saying. It didn’t matter if they were small or big, had few followers or not, I would get them all taken down. I’d do that on a daily basis, reporting maybe 17 to 20 a day. But like, I’m not being paid to do this, and I have so many other things that I need to be doing. Like, there’s no point.
For so long I told my fans that I’m not on any dating apps, and then finally I got an account and my fans were like “that’s not her!
How many do you think you’ve reported over the course of the years?Hundreds and hundreds. This was back when I was still pretty small. I had a lot of time on my hands, so I had lot of time to do that. It was just daily, going, going, going.
What about how it affects you personally? Does it creep you out? Does it worry you?It’s so bad that I can’t even be on any dating app; I get banned off every single dating app because I get reported as a catfish. ” But it was me.
Hinge I really liked, but I only got to use it for less than 24 hours which was really sad. I thought if I messaged customer service beforehand and provided them proof of identification, I would be spared from being blocked. The lady assured me I wouldn’t be, but less than 24 hours later I got my account taken away.
Now I’ve appealed twice, but they’re like “we don’t care”. I am a single woman and it’s hard during corona.
What about the people who fall for the catfishes-how do you feel about them?I’ve heard that people have spent thousands of dollars on the catfishes, which makes me feel really bad. But at a certain point it’s not my problem. I don’t need to give them their money back. In the nicest way possible: I wasn’t dumb enough to fall for it.
In my mind, there’s no one that I have never met in person, who I have no proof that they actually exist, https://datingreviewer.net/local-hookup/norwich/ that I would ever give a thousand dollars to. I still feel bad for them, but I just wish that they would have thought so much harder before letting go of their hard-earned cash to somebody who [they] have no face, no name, no address [of].
The catfishing problem is so severe that I am banned off Bumble, Hinge, Tinder, Her-I’m banned off all of them
Do you think social media platforms have a responsibility in this? What do you think they should be doing to stop this sort of thing?I don’t know what they can do, unless each person has to confirm their identity with like a driver’s license, and if they don’t do that they have restricted access to messaging people. I don’t know about that business side of things for them.