Hook and Release: Cat Fishing for Beginners by UnrulyNerdGirl
Summary:

How to spot a faker.


Categories: The Lifestyle > Safe, Sane Risk Management Characters: None
Content Notes: Safety
Challenges:
Series: None
Chapters: 1 Completed: Yes Word count: 1689 Read: 1702 Published: 05/28/2017 Updated: 05/28/2017

1. Chapter 1 by UnrulyNerdGirl

Chapter 1 by UnrulyNerdGirl

Disclaimer: This writing isn't about you. If you believe it is, trust me, it's not about you. If you're still not convinced that this writing isn't about you, please don't bang away on a keyboard responding like an angry chimpanzee; rather, please send me a message, we can go for tea, and you can tell me how you feel this writing is either entirely, or partially about you. I write to verbalize my feelings, and stop the thoughts that can circle my brain for longer than I would like. I write so current and future play partners get a sense of my thought patterns, and where I might be coming from - because I'm often not the greatest at the putting words together thing. I write for all of my reasons, and none of yours.

Cat fishing, in terms of social networking, is the use of a sock puppet account for nefarious purposes. This usually manifests via online dating sites, where someone portrays themselves as someone they are not.

In 2016, I can almost guarantee that you, who are reading this, have been preyed upon by an unscrupulous person, pretending to be someone they are not for their own gain or self satisfaction. You may not have known this happened, perhaps all they wanted was a little information from you, perhaps just a little attention, and once they achieved his/her goals, they disappeared.

Over the years, I have encountered a number of cat fish - whether on a dating site, on Fetlife, on Facebook, or some other social networking site - and I am here to share with you today my top tricks and tips on spotting a cat fish. Get your nets handy folks, I'm going to teach you how to land one of these internet bottom feeders!

1. Poor grammar and or spelling - Now, this is not a knock against any culture, or ethnic minority, but the majority of easily spotted cat fish seem to be from countries outside of North America, or outside of a First World country - and the tell tale sign is poor English grammar or spelling, because it is not usually the person's first language. Now, there are two things to look for - first, his/her bio. This can be difficult, because with virtual work websites, you can get an excellent bio written for you for as little as $5.00 US - so you need to look at not only his/her bio, but also the spelling and grammar when he/she writes a message or chats with you. This is not the only red flag to look for - in fact, in and of itself, it is not a clear indicator that you have a cat fish on the line - because unfortunately, there are far too many people around the world who are in this day and age illiterate, or have difficulty typing, or even have difficult expressing themselvs. So please don't assume that just because someone has poor grammar or spelling that he/she is trying to pull a fast one.

2. Delay in chatting - There are two areas here - the first being the amount of time a person takes when they are messaging you. If you are messaging or chatting with someone, and it seems to take minutes for them to respond, there are a myriad of reasons why - but one very good reason might be that they need to have your message translated - usually by Google, or some other free text translator - and then have what they want to say translated before they reply to you. Again, this can be taken out of context - perhaps the person has a disability that makes it difficult for him/her to type, or perhaps he/she is trying to comfort an upset child, occupying one arm, while they are trying to type with one hand or finger - so please don't jump out of your seat crying 'J'accuse!' as soon as you see this pattern. The second part to this is - if someone reportedly lives in North America - but you notice that he/she is online at the oddest hours, or hours that don't seem to jive with the time zone, that could be a pretty good indication that that individual does not live where he/she had lead you to believe. It might very well be that he/she is a night worker, and works hours when the rest of the city or province/state or country is asleep, so always keep that in mind.

3. Odd phrasing - I've noticed with a lot of cat fish, they seem to employ odd phrases - usually referring to you as 'dear' or 'beautiful one', and there is quite often a mention of God thrown around more than once. While this could indicate someone who is full of the Holy Spirit, it is out of place for most Western culture type countries.

4. Non-comprehension of common slang and rhetoric - I'll be the first to hold up my hand and say I don't get some of the usual slang where I am, and I do have to look up the occasional accronym or short hand that pops up in text, but if someone doesn't get pretty common cultural or societal terms, you might not be dealing with the person you think. As an example, I was speaking to a woman who was in her 30's, and she indicated she was a lesbian, from the United States. As part of casual conversation, I asked how long she had been 'out' - and she didn't understand this - she asked 'Where is out?' Perhaps English isn't her first language, perhaps she wasn't born in the United States, perhaps being openly gay isn't referred to being 'out of the closest' where she is from or living, but when you refer to a gay person as being 'out', it's usually understood what that means.

5. Wildly successful jobs - Bankers, doctors, and oddly enough, servicemen/women - these are the jobs that cat fish seem to favour - perhaps because they think this is what is so attractive to others. The funny thing is, it is very easy to catch a cat fish, the more wildly successful his/her career choice seems to be. As an example, I was contacted by a cat fish who said he was the vice president of a New York bank. Most businesses, that involve Presidents, Vice Presidents, or Members of the Board, usually list this information on their website - it's there, it's public, it is easily searchable. In fact, if someone is in the banking world, or in the business world, it is very easy to follow his/her career path on the internet, because often there will be announcements in the local paper, financial or otherwise, when someone new joins a team. If someone reports to have some fantastic, high paying job, but you can't seem to find a single trace of him/her - you might be dealing with a cat fish.

6. Foreign ISP's or email servers - If you are getting to know someone, alledgedly local, and they give you some foreign ISP email address - such as ending in .CH - chances are, you are dealing with a cat fish. If they give you an email address, Google the last little bit - the part after the '@' sign - if it isn't something like Hotmail, or Gmail. It may very well be the person you are getting to know is a computer geek, and he/she has special reasons for wanting to have his/her email outside of the normal public avenues, but when you are presented this with some of the other red flag criteria listed above, chances are, the person you thought you knew isn't real at all.

7. Asking for money - now this is a HUGE red flag - especially if he/she opens with something like 'I need money to get my child out of an orphanage' - especially if you have just 'met' this person.

Now, I've listed a few things that can tip you off to a cat fish - here are a few tips on how to trip someone up if you suspect they are indeed not who they claim to be:

1. Ask for more photos - often a cat fish will have a few select photos of 'himself' or 'herself' on the social media site - and if you ask for more, they will come up with every reason under the sun why they can't provide you more. The real reason is, he/she was only able to find these two or three photos - that they most likely stole from another person's profile, and they can't get any more. Ask for photos of his/her home, kids, family - bet they really can't produce any.

2. Ask to call them - see what phone number they provide - with technology today, you can easily get a local direct inward dial number from any country, so it appears you are calling from a person's area, even though you might be sitting on the Kamchatka Peninsula - so that is never a sure bet. However, if you speak to the person, you can hear his/her voice - do they have an accent? What is his/her reaction when you refer to past conversations, or you ask about personal information - is he/she hesitant?

3. Ask details about his/her job - where did he/she go to school - what classes did he/she take - these are questions that shouldn't require much thought.

Here's the irony - you and I might be perfectly willing to get to know someone from a foreign culture or foreign country - but no one likes a liar or a fraud. So while this man or woman thinks he/she is getting what he/she wants - information, affection, attention - the real loss is, he/she could have had something even better.

All of these signs on their own don't add up to much, but all together, they indicate that you might be dealing with a cat fish.

Happy fishing my friends!

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