Hi everyone:) met this girl online awhile ago and have had an awesome time with her playing games and such and since we were just friends and states away no FaceTimes or meetups were a thing. She’s sent me pics here and there and I had no reason to believe they were fake. A small slip up and random “people you may know” social media thing made me find out her name wasn’t what I knew it was which is cool safety first, but then I did a lil bit of investigating because some small things weren’t making sense. Lil bit of investigating these past weeks have turned into FBI level investigating(joke) and I found a few profiles and a single picture that immediately proved the catfish theory like 99.9%.I haven’t said anything to her yet because i genuinely enjoy talking and spending time with her although it’s slowed down.(maybe she’s realizing what she’s doing is bad?) I don’t understand why she’d do this like she’s pretty and so cool and doesn’t need to do it at all and I wish I never did the digging because I think it’d really affect her getting exposed and it makes we want to delete every form of social media lol. Thoughts? I know what I need to do but what is reddits opinions

Edit: I’m sure people catfishing check this subreddit often. If this sounds like you or if it is you please don’t panic just be straight up with me before I need to be straight up with you

In 2024, I (27F, but was 25 then) became friends with a girl online through a video game. Let’s call her Popcorn (25F but was 23 then). We quickly became good friends and started talking pretty much every day. We had quite a lot in common, and our conversations were usually about hobbies, games, work, and just everyday things. Occasionally, we’d talk about anxiety or things we were struggling with, but nothing too deep.

She was quite quiet and sometimes struggled to respond to things, but she explained that it was because of her autism and social anxiety. I understood and got used to the way she was, so it never really bothered me. I genuinely enjoyed talking to her and liked her as a person.

Fast forward several months, almost a year, and we still hadn’t spoken over voice calls or exchanged photos. At first, I assumed she might not be very confident or perhaps had some bad experiences in the past. I know these things aren’t necessary for an online friendship, but personally, I feel like they help you get closer to someone, especially when you can’t meet them in person. It’s nice to be able to put a voice or face to the person you’re talking to, and for me, it also feels like a sign of trust.

As more time passed, though, nothing really changed, and I started feeling like we weren’t getting any closer as friends. We considered each other best friends, and we’d even sent each other birthday gifts. She arranged mine through my ex-boyfriend at the time, and I sent her parcel to a post office for her to collect. So, it wasn’t as though we were just casual online friends.

I really value close friendships, and I want to feel like I’m genuinely getting to know the people I care about. As much as I liked her, I was upset that our friendship never seemed to progress beyond a certain point. Eventually, I started distancing myself a little. I went from messaging her every day to maybe every other day, and we stopped playing games together as much.

I know I could’ve handled things better and communicated how I was feeling instead of pulling away. I’m not a very confrontational person, and I had tried bringing it up before, but she seemed uncomfortable, so I’d leave it alone. When she noticed I was acting distant and asked me about it, I blamed it on the personal things I’d been dealing with that year, which she already knew about, rather than being honest about the actual reason.

One evening, she joined me on a game, and we ended up having one of those late-night conversations. I’d been stressed about some unrelated things and was venting when she mentioned feeling lonely. I told her I felt the same way, and I finally worked up the courage to tell her that I was upset we never seemed to get to know each other on a deeper level. I explained that I would’ve liked to have voice calls or even just know what she looked like.

For context, she knew what I sounded like, and I’m pretty sure she knew what I looked like, too. I’m comfortable sharing those things with people I trust, and I guess I’d hoped that, after so long, we’d reach that point in our friendship.

She apologised and said it was something she couldn’t do. That was pretty much the end of the conversation.

After that, we spoke even less. We’d occasionally play games together, but we’d mostly just talk about the game, if we spoke at all. I ended up withdrawing again because I felt a bit silly for putting so much effort into making her feel comfortable and hoping we’d eventually become closer, when it seemed like that wasn’t going to happen.

I started thinking that maybe I needed to put more energy into other friendships that felt more fulfilling. I still cared about her, but I was struggling with the fact that we considered each other best friends when I didn’t feel like I really knew her that well, if that makes sense.
I can’t remember exactly when we had that conversation, but it was a few months ago now, and we’ll have been friends for two years this December.
Fast forward to now, and she recently messaged me explaining everything. She told me her real gender, name and age, explained why she’d lied, and said how terrible she felt about keeping it from me for so long. She also said she wanted us to continue being friends and reassured me that our friendship hadn’t been a lie, just her identity.

Honestly, I was stunned. I wasn’t angry, if anything, I felt sad for her knowing she’d been carrying this secret for so long. I replied not long after her initial message, telling her I wasn’t going anywhere and that I still wanted to be friends. I wanted to reassure her that everything was okay and that I wasn’t going to abandon her over this.

But now, I feel like I might’ve responded too quickly. I probably should’ve taken some time to process everything before reassuring her, because the more I’ve thought about it, the more conflicted I’ve become.
I feel betrayed. I’ve spent nearly two years being friends with someone I believed was a girl, sharing personal things with her that I probably wouldn’t have shared if I’d known she was actually a guy. Now I feel embarrassed and stupid, even though I know I couldn’t have known.

The weird thing is, I remember occasionally wondering to myself, “What if she was actually a guy? Would that bother me?” And at the time, I honestly don’t think it would’ve. But now that it’s actually happened, I feel completely different, and I don’t really understand why.

I think if she’d told me earlier in our friendship, I probably wouldn’t have cared as much. But finding out after almost two years feels different. I have absolutely no problem being friends with guys, so it’s not that. It’s more the fact that someone I trusted wasn’t honest with me for so long, and I was sharing things with someone without knowing who they really were.

I don’t want to cut him out of my life, because I do still care about him and the friendship we had. At the same time, I’m struggling to separate the friendship I thought I had from the reality of what’s happened. I don’t know if I can just carry on as normal, but I also don’t want to throw away two years of friendship.
I guess I’m just struggling to figure out how I feel and what I should do moving forward. Has anyone been in a similar situation, or does anyone have any advice?

Apologies for such a long post! Just wanted to give as much context as I could.

So this 'girl' followed me on insta i asked if I knew her she said that it was random we talked she did send a vn yk to tell me fs that she was a girl but she's 18 in a college and has like 50 followers and following from chattisgarh so no way of meeting physicaly

I did confront her about my doubts and then we called talked on Instagram using voice call for a couple minutes she did refused to open the camera but it was a sound of a girl that I heard and she mostly talks with vn only I'm really confused what should I do ?! Please reach out by dm do not answer in comments of possible

I’m getting accused by my man that I have a dating app and it seems that I’m getting impersonated. He hasn’t replied to me about what app I was seen on, but it seems like so many of my pictures down to personal info, and my instagram handle are on there. Is there anything I can do? He says his friend saw me on there and he sent me a screenshot but it doesn’t say what app it is. I haven’t had a dating profile in years, as I’ve been with him for almost 7 years . Not even sure if I’m blocked or what now but he’s removed our shared albums and everything else. This is super frustrating |:

my friend is catfishing someone and being quiet and hiding it every time I bring it up. he is using Instagram alt account that I do not know the username to. he is very immature and will not talk about it. The person being catfished is losing money and over 18f my friend is 13m. can someone give me material or help me. Gratitude for anyone that helps

Hi everyone, I am looking for outside perspective on something I am dealing with. This might be a longer post.

I met someone on Instagram about 2 1/2 - 3 years ago, and have been talking to them pretty frequently since then. I will call her K for now. K’s account was pretty empty in terms of content, but they were tagged in a few posts, had the account since 2021 with only 2 handle changes, and had a decently split ratio of followers to following, about 250:370, so it didn’t seem too illegitimate despite the lack of content.

As some time went on we got closer and began talking more frequently. I learned more about her, that she was from Florida but currently living in NYC, basic info like that. I asked twice to meet her but she refused both times since we still didn’t know each other well, which makes sense since this was only a month or so into knowing each other. A little while after she ended up going back to Florida, and so far has not been back to NYC since.

At some point I remembered seeing changes happen to the account. The PFP and handle were changed, almost as if doing a clean slate. The handle changed from her first name to “***.vf”. Up until this point, that meant nothing to me because as far as I knew her name was K. One thing I found interesting though was that there was a new post, but it was a post unarchived from sometime in 2023, before I had met her. The caption mentioned K and her cousin, seemingly showing pictures of the two of them together in a mirror.

Then, back in June 2025, I asked them for their phone number, as I figured having gone this long it didn’t feel like I was being targeted for a scam. She gave it to me right away, so we started texting through there. They had an iPhone, which had tracked from the pictures they sent me. About a week into having their number, they told me that their real name wasn’t K, and that their initials came out to VF, the same initials that appeared in her IG handle about 6 months prior. They claimed that they only used their real initials with close friends / family, which is why they introduced themselves under a different name.

Fast forward to now, I had zero interactions with them that was asking me for money, help, etc. At one point I even offered to send some money via Venmo for their birthday, and the offer was still rejected. So then I got curious and looked them up on sites like TruePeopleSearch. When I looked at their number, they came up as a man's name with the initials FS. The same thing showed when I looked up the number in Zelle. So I figured I probably was being catfished, but I didn’t (and still don’t), understand what for. It didn’t make sense to me unless they wanted something. They’ve even expressed worry about me recently when I had been going out to bars / parties with friends for 4-5 days straight. In my mind, if they were looking to gain something they wouldn’t have even brought it up.

So I tried to do more digging and get more information. I tried reverse image searches through Google, Pimeye, Tineye, and Yandex on ~32 different images, ones of her and ones not necessarily of her, just stuff she was doing / her car, things of that variety. Out of all of them, only two had basically identical results on Yandex, that being one of the pictures of her car (two other pictures of her car were sent at the same time as that one, and I found no identical photos for them), and the second was a faceless picture of her showing what she was wearing. Both had matches shown on Pinterest, but on different accounts and different boards.
The only thing that I found suspicious was that some photos showed they were taken on an iPhone 16, whereas others did not show a phone model. Some of her mirror pictures however showed an iPhone X.

I am just not really sure what to think. I realize this is probably a very obvious, clear cut case that I don’t see out of bias, but I don’t understand why they would be catfishing me if they are not looking for anything to gain. At least it’s never been very obvious or telling. I’ve gone through different accounts in their followers / following, lots of them show places in the same area of Florida which matches their phone number’s area code. A few show NYC, which matches them having been in NYC for a little while, and only about 2-3 have shown California. It’s such a small batch out of ~300 accounts, but I feel like it still counts for something. Thank you for taking the time to read through this.

Quien te escribe no lo hace desde el rencor, sino desde la profunda indignación que provoca presenciar un acto de absoluta cobardía.
Existen muchas formas de equivocarse en la vida, de cometer errores de juicio o de lastimar sin querer debido a nuestras propias limitaciones. Sin embargo, hay un límite que cruza la frontera del simple error para adentrarse en el terreno de la crueldad deliberada: utilizar la vulnerabilidad de otra persona para hacerle daño y dejarla en evidencia.
No hay acto más bajo, más ruin ni más cobarde. Cuando alguien abre su corazón, cuando muestra sus grietas, sus miedos o aquello que le duele, confía implícitamente en que ese espacio será respetado. Usar esa confidencia o esa flaqueza como un arma arrojadiza, exhibirla ante los demás para causar burla o humillación, no demuestra fuerza ni inteligencia; muestra una profunda miseria moral.
Mofarse de las debilidades ajenas es la expresión más pura de la mezquindad. Es el refugio de quien necesita aplastar a otro para sentirse grande, de quien carece de empatía y de argumentos genuinos, y busca en el escarnio público un falso brillo que su vacío interior le niega. Es, en esencia, patear a alguien cuando está indefenso, sabiendo perfectamente el dolor que se está causando.
Lo más triste de todo esto no es solo el daño que provocas en quien confió o en quien fue expuesto, sino la radiografía exacta de lo que eres por dentro. Las heridas causadas por el orgullo y la maldad ajena suelen sanar con el tiempo y con el apoyo de quienes sí saben amar y respetar; en cambio, la bajeza con la que has actuado deja una marca imborrable, pero no en tu víctima, sino en tu propia reputación ética.
Se puede perder una discusión, se pueden cometer faltas, pero perder la decencia humana y regodearse en el dolor ajeno es algo de lo que difícilmente se regresa con la conciencia limpia.
Guarda tus aplausos vacíos y tus risas cómplices. Al final del día, la crueldad con la que decides pisotear a los demás siempre habla mucho más de quien la ejerce que de quien la padece.

so basically i met a dude and we were talking for a while before we got together and we had known each other for 1 year and 2 months and basically during that time we never video or voice called because i had strict parents and he did too so we never pushed, but i would often send pictures about stuff in my day to day life or pics of my face but he never sent pictures saying he had strict parents and he didn't even send voice messages. i met his sister during that time and i would ask her if she could send me a pic of him or a voice recording and she did and the picture looked AI anyone i showed said it was AI and even when i put it into google images it said it was AI, so i confronted his sister about it and she told me that sometimes AI make mistakes and he usually edited his pictures so maybe the AI made a mistake. Anyways his life was very dramatic like every other day he would get into a car crash, or get beat up or something like that and it seemed so scripted and faked but i believed him cause i was blinded by love and would spend my time worrying about him and offering advice.

He was also like way too perfect like he was 6'2, funny, handsome, rich, loyal, and stuff like that. halfway through our relationship he opened up to me about having a heart disease and everyday he would have some issues with his health and i was always worried and put a lot more effort into the relationship than him, like i would stay up late at night to text him but he wouldn't cause apparently his parents were strict. btw we were long distance and we both didn't really give each other details about our lives like where we live, our phone numbers and stuff like that. I found his insta account and it was public until i started showing up on his suggested he made his account private and he made the account a month after we met and apparently it was a back up account.

basically i told him that i'd be able to call him and be more online after i graduated high school and he was happy. So the week i graduated his sister texted me that he had died from a heart attack and she gave me details and the medical facts she told me seemed real but the other details seemed so fake and staged. And i basically cried my eyes out and went into a depressive state cause he meant a lot to me and i was very emotionally invested because he was the first person who understood me, believed me and genuinely cared about me. But i asked his sister for proof that he died and she told me she didn't have proof and she deleted it cause she didn't want to see his dead body. and she sent me a long text that my bf had written out for me in case he didn't make it and died. and what was weird was he died in the morning and the night before he died, when he was going to bed he kept saying i love you to me like more than usual and of course i'm an over thinker so i asked him 'you keep saying i love you to me should i be worried' and he replied with i was just reminding you. all his accounts went to his family and friends so even if i did see him online i would assume its his friends.

even now his friend and family are keeping me in a loop like they told me he died but they are also giving me hints that he could be alive so i believe it and don't move on. and some of the stuff they tell me don't make sense and if i ask a question they would avoid it. i feel bad cause i get a thought like what if he actually died and i'm here doubting him and his love.

basically idk what to do because i really want to find the truth and get closure so i can move on without the doubt of what if he is alive. and i also want to know if he is real or if he lied. and it hurts me cause now i'm overthinking how much was real and how much wasn't.

ps: sorry for the long text i just wrote whatever came to my mind, i literally got Reddit to get advice from people who might know a thing or two

Eso presisamente es lo que me das más coraje que el sabe y yo sé que no es totalmente sincero, no tiene ni siquiera el valor y el coraje de hacerme una simple pregunta que hubiera podido evitar tanto mal entendido, es cuestión de comunicación y confianza claro que si

When I was 15, a guy named Kyle and his friends bullied me after I rejected him, so I created a fake Instagram account named Seirra to defend myself. I'd switch accounts and argue with them, and somehow, Kyle's friends even started hitting on her. 💀 Over time, I invented an entire backstory for Seirra, including a computer science degree and a brother named Sid. Neither exists. Now, years later, Kyle's sister goes to my university and keeps asking about Seirra. Everyone wants to meet her someday. GIRL, SHE DOESN'T EXIST. 😭

Hello. If you've seen my previous posts, you'll know what's happened so far. Well, over the past few weeks, a whole lot more has happened. If I omit any details, it is because I am extremely tired, my apologies.

I know I said my previous post would be my last but I figured that I might as well make a final post.

For anyone that hasn't seen my previous posts, it's under "I think my online friend is catfishing me" if you search it up you'll find it. Here's the TL;DR, though:

My online friend of 2+ years, Jane, catfished my entire friend group for over a year. She lied about their face and sent somebody else's videos pretending they were hers. After I confronted her, she blocked us all. Then I found the person she was pretending to be (ill call her Alice since I forgot what I called her in the other post). Alice was actually Jane's best friend. Alice was understandably upset and we made a plan to confront Jane & inform Jane's other best friend, K, of the situation.

After telling K he agreed to help us. However, before anything happened, Jane realised K found out and she blocked us again.

Now, here comes the new bit.

A few days ago, I noticed suspicious activity surrounding an account on tiktok that was stalking me and my best friends. I immediately realised this was Jane's alt and she was trying to become friends with us again pretending to be someone else. Upon further investigation, my suspicions were basically confirmed. There were too many similarities for it to be a coincidence.

I asked my friend she followed to follow her back so we could reel her in, essentially. Anyway, it worked. A few hours ago, we had our last conversation. she confessed to everything, apologised profusely and we asked her questions.

Q: why did you block us the first time

A: I know you said you weren't gonna be mad but I was too scared to face you guys

Q: why did you steal Alice's videos?

A: I always admired her style but when I tried to do it myself I failed and I felt terrible. I thought it would've been easier to pretend to be better than I actually was.

Q: what else have you lied about?

A: my age (not an adult, actually a minor), being trans, skin colour, having a bf etc...

Anyway, long story short, me and my other friends are moving on. I chose to forgive her after I made her confess to her other online friends what she did as well. I hope she can grow from this, even if that's too much to hope for.

I'm glad I confronted her. I feel a sense of closure. And to be honest, this conversation made me realise how pointless it is to hold grudges against people. I'm grateful for the time she spent with me even if she lied and while I did hate her a bit for lying, I'm choosing to no longer be resentful for my own sake. Thank you for whoever has given me advice and kept up with my journey so far ❤️.

There's this one girl who followed me on instagram who lives literally 1880km away from my house she says she's finding an old classmate of her with the same name her profile is legit too what do I do ?

I got cat fished few times by trans women pretending to be women on hinge and bumble is that normal? Because now they can fully transform makes it harder to tell. It’s super annoying 😤

I’ve debating posting this for an hour bc I’m so embarrassed and maybe scared of the truth??

Just joined this group because I truly have no clue if I’m being catfished or not…I matched with this guy (29) about a year ago on tinder. We immediately hit it off and he asked for my number which I gladly gave after a few days. We texted for around 3 months almost every day but live 4 hours away from each other so seeing each other soon was not an option. We talked about everything in detail: intimacy, day to day life, family/how we were raised. The convo stayed SO GOOD to the point I told him I wanted to come visit him. The kicker…we never FaceTimed and I only got pictures of his lower portion (which were all very consistent). No socials because he “had a shitty past with shitty people” who he didn’t want knowing his whereabouts.

Well I made plans to go to him and told all my friends and shared my location, the full shabang. He bailed last minute for a stupid reason so I cut him off because the voice in the back of my head said this was super weird. He never asked for money or anything, just wanted to know about my day and such.

We would randomly text for a day or so maybe a few times in between then and now. Well I got wine drunk about 2 weeks ago and drunk texted him. We immediately hit it off again. All of his stories are consistent with what they were a year ago and all the photos of him I have gotten since (19 selfies) don’t show up in reverse image search. However I looked up his number and it came up as owned by a 30 year old woman….am I being an idiot?? He will dodge FaceTiming me but sends me voice memos which i know can’t be reliable.

Please ask questions if you need clarification on anything….I’ve never been in a situation like this before and want to save myself the heartache if possible bc damn is the conversation good and we have plans to meet but I’ve stated that will not be happening unless we FaceTime first to which he agrees??? Main thing is the phone number being registered to a married woman in the same state he said he lives in…..and dodging FaceTiming me obviously.

There is an account on Instagram that I am 95% positive is a catfish. However, they are verified on Instagram and I am unsure what the verification process on this platform is like. Don’t you need to supply government-issued ID? Or are they very lax with checking?

Someone messaged me on Reddit claiming to be a 34 year old US Army sergeant deployed in Syria. We barely know each other, but he quickly started talking about finding a soulmate and eventually relocating to be with me.

A few things have made me suspicious. His deployment story seems inconsistent with what I found online, and I have questions about the military uniform in his photo. He also called me by the wrong name once and avoided giving a clear explanation when I questioned these details.

Since then, he has told me that his ex stole money from his bank account and that he often gets sick because of the food where he is deployed. He has not asked me for money, but the combination of stories feels suspicious.

I have not established whether his photos are stolen, AI generated, or genuinely his.

For those familiar with catfishing, what would be the best way to assess whether his photos and claimed identity are genuine, beyond a basic reverse image search?

My friend and I have been in contact with this guy since 2020. He goes by the name 'Adam the snail' and has only ever used this single picture. He has sent us many deeply disturbing and inappropriate messages over the years, and this is the only photo we have of him.

We want to find out the real identity of the person in the photo, as we know the account is fake. He has repeatedly lied about his age, giving completely different numbers to each of us. We simply want to confirm that this profile is a catfish and hopefully identify the real person in the picture to finally get some peace of mind.

https://ibb.co/9msfP6b5

Apparently I'm on a dating app I've never even downloaded. Great.

A woman messaged me on Instagram yesterday asking why I'd stopped replying to her on Bumble. Thought she had the wrong guy until she sent me screenshots.

It's my face, my first name and three photos from my Instagram. Whoever made the account changed my age and put a different city.

The really uncomfortable part is that they'd been talking for almost two weeks. She sent me some of the messages and this person was making plans to meet her.

I reported the profile but now I'm wondering if it's the only one. I've never used Bumble, so I can't exactly log in and see what's going on.

Anyone dealt with their photos being stolen for dating profiles? How did you check if there were more accounts, and did reporting them get anywhere?

There are dozens of scamming women who follow me then ask me how I am doing. They always follow the same pattern. Some appear to be AI bots.

I still don’t know the persons real face or even name. They messaged me on a local app asking about single parent dating advice and I had responded. We’ve been talking and he’s sent me pictures but I got the feeling something was off. Sure enough I finally found a picture just like his but with a different face. He’s since ghosted after I confronted him but it just hurts because we talked about marriage, children, ect.