inside the catfishing con destroying lives
As more people than ever are being duped by fake profiles online, Closer speaks to those whose lives have been destroyed
For the past two F years, Matt Peacock and his wife Rachel’s lives have been made hell by a person using his identity on dating sites – something known as catfishing. The fraudster has struck up dozens of relationships with women, posing as Matt, and even encouraged them to send him explicit pictures and videos. Shockingly, Rachel, 29, had to endure messages from angry women, claiming her husband was cheating.
But Matt’s experience is far from unique. Facebook has admitted it has more than 83m fake profiles globally, and research by consumer group Which? found that more than half of online dating users have found a fake profile.
Catfishers often try to extort money from people, too, and the number of people affected has reached a record high. Last year, 3,889 victims handed over a record £39m to online scammers, but police believe it’s just the tip of the iceberg, as many people are too embarrassed to admit they’ve been duped.
STOLEN IDENTITY
The problem is so prevalent, it led to the creation of the film Catfish and an MTV series of the same name, where presenter Nev Schulman – a victim of catfishing himself – helps people learn the true identities of their online romances.
So why is catfishing becoming so common? Tony Neate, CEO of charity Get Safe Online, says: “With online dating, it’s easy to hide behind a computer and pretend to be someone else. And online dating is now so popular, often people aren’t as guarded as they should be. I know of people who have even committed suicide because of catfishing.
“There should definitely be a stricter verification process when it comes to setting up profiles. For example, dating companies should Skype those who want to join. We’d welcome a law to make catfishing a criminal offence.”
Rachel and model Matt, from Manchester, are now spearheading a campaign, Killing Catfish, along with The Lady Detective Agency, which aims to change the UK law to make catfishing illegal.
Rachel says:“i got horrible messages from women for years, saying Matt was cheating on me. It felt like it was neverending. If we weren’t as strong as we are, it would have broken us up. Catfishing can ruin lives and it needs to be legally recognised as a crime.”
Matt’s problems started five years ago when he joined Instagram. Rachel, also a model, explains: “friends would say they’d seen Matt’s identity
being used on social media. His modelling pictures are often a target for catfishers and at first we weren’t worried.”
But the problem escalated, as Rachel explains: “The catfisher started creating a new profile of Matt almost every month and was using it to date women. Matt would get angry messages from girls accusing him of cheating, as well as men threatening him for flirting with their girlfriends. I knew Matt would never cheat on me, but it was still horrible getting the abusive messages.” Matt asked the socialnetworking sites to deactivate the profiles, but new ones kept springing up. Rachel says: “The catfisher used pictures of his nieces and nephews from his Instagram account and put them on his own profile so he looked like a family man. He had a big argument with his brother about it and it caused a lot of tension.
“We considered going to the police, but we didn’t think we’d be taken seriously. We were on edge because Matt would regularly get messages from girls who’d been duped by the catfisher and were upset. It made our lives hell.”
ongoing Struggle
In November 2016, Matt was contacted by The Lady Detective Agency, who’d seen him complaining about catfishing on Facebook. They tracked down his impersonator and, in January, Matt confronted him.
Rachel says: “Matt told me he seemed quite introverted and was normal-looking. When he found out he’d been caught, he burst into tears. He kept apologising and said he’d only targeted Matt as he had no self-confidence. He agreed to stop doing it and Matt felt sorry for him.”
But just a week later, he’d set up a new account and Matt is still struggling to stop him. Rachel says: “We were furious, so Matt went to the police, but they told him there was nothing they could
do. They said the only thing the catfish was guilty of was pulling the wool over our eyes. But I want to see catfishing made a crime.”
Suspicious behaviour
Mum-of-two Jane Cunningham, 46, also knows what it’s like to be duped by a catfish. The chef from Lincolnshire fell for an online con-artist posing as a US soldier on Tinder, who asked her for nearly £3k.
Jane had been single for five years when she matched with Sergeant Robert Rafter on Tinder in January. She says: “His uniform caught my eye. He told me he was an Iraq veteran and sent photos of himself in combat. I was feeling lonely and was flattered by the attention. We messaged for about five weeks and he said he couldn’t wait to be with me. We even talked about getting married.”
But he soon asked for money and Jane became suspicious. She says: “He wanted nearly £3k for flights so he could visit me. I spoke to my sister, who told me not to send any money. I looked at his friends on Facebook and they were all middle-aged women, who I realised must have been potential targets. I felt humiliated I’d fallen for it. I sent messages to the women warning them not to send him money and they thanked me. I’m just relieved I found out before anything worse happened. We need to protect people from online fraudsters.”