Catfishing
Building an online relationship behind a fake or stolen identity to exploit the victim.
Catfishing is the use of a fake or stolen identity to build an online relationship under false pretences. The catfish invents a convincing persona — photos lifted from someone else, a plausible backstory, steady attention — to win trust that will later be exploited, most often for money but sometimes for images, information or plain manipulation. It is the engine inside most romance scams: the person you are falling for does not exist as described.
Warning signs cluster around avoidance of anything that would expose the fiction — endless reasons not to meet, a camera that never works for a live video call, professional-looking photos that appear elsewhere online under a different name. A reverse image search and a request for a spontaneous live call are simple, revealing tests. If the story keeps sliding towards a crisis only your money can solve, the persona was built for exactly that moment. Our guide to the warning signs of a romance scam explains how to check kindly and protect yourself without wrongly accusing an innocent stranger.