That Time I Was Being Catfished

That time was a few days ago, you know over Memorial Day Weekend. Yeah, that time.

To preface this story, I was NEVER going to be one of those old people who fell for every marketing scam that came down the pike. My Yahoo! Spam folder is full of promises for the perfect over-50 body, testosterone level, soulmate, get rich investment scheme, you name it. I delete that folder almost daily. There are the sponsored ads for freebies on social media that I mostly ignore, though I have followed a couple of them down the endless survey rabbit hole only to get frustrated that I fell for it and wasted my time.

Well, I've also watched the Catfish TV series that ran on MTV when my daughters were younger and living at home. We watched countless episodes together of socially awkward-to-inept teens and young adults pose as someone skinnier, healthier, funnier, prettier...in order to snag a fish. The saying goes there are "many fish in the sea," but these people can't rely on their own merit to catch one, apparently. This idea of catfishing has been going on for years. It snared a cousin of mine who lost his career over it. I was never going to be that gullible.

Right.

The bots are aplenty on all of the Meta platforms--Instagram, Threads and Facebook--that I've used. And I've had to utilize the block button more times than I care to count. I've even had replies to my comments on a post from bots that go to some length expressing how interesting of a person I am and would I please friend them or contact them so they can know me better. Some version of that has happened numerous times. My response is to either hide the comment, if I can't simply delete it, and to block that "user." I'm guessing most of them are Chinese hackers phishing for identities to steal.

But then a reply to a comment I made last week on a Vanity Fair article caught my attention. Of course, first gut instincts are always spot-on and as you'll note, I called out "BOT!" right away. But what struck me about this response is that it seemed a little more personal. It said they wouldn't get to know me unless I was "brave enough" to text them. Okay, now you've questioned my manhood (in a manner of speaking).

Initial exchange under an innocuous comment on a Vanity Fair post last week.

This Jennifer Williams, as she called herself, was just seeking conversation. That seemed reasonable AND HUMAN enough. So I took the bait...and here's what ensued over the weekend...

This Jennifer wanted photos immediately. I offered the one in my profile as it is only a month or two old. "Is that all I get?" And she sent me three photos with a quickness...you know, to sell herself as Jennifer, US Army Chaplain Corps, Idaho Falls, 53. Does she look 53 to you??

The photos I got almost instantly, like she had them on the ready

WOW, I thought, she's pretty attractive! What boosted that was her forwardness, confidence and the fact that she was a badass in the military, and a chaplain to boot, which meant that she was spiritual and invested in enriching others. And LOOK, it says "Williams" right on the uniform. I took that as a clue this was a real person. I mean, it is a real person, not named Jennifer, and not hot on the trail of her soulmate to share her golden years of military retirement with.

That's what I was sold over the weekend, alotta hooey about her pending retirement at age 53, and her being five years post-divorce, ready to find that special someone to settle down with.

After receiving the pictures and some discussion about Idaho--the cell phone number she gave is a Potlach, ID, number--she quickly updated her profile to Moscow, ID, the nearest town. But what was interesting is that no bases are anywhere in the vicinity except the US Naval Surface Command, and so I wondered if an Army Chaplain would be assigned there.

According to "Jennifer," she had no children, no siblings and her parents were both deceased. Convenient. She was on her last deployment (a story that quickly changed once things unraveled, but be patient, I'm getting there).

The conversation was hot and heavy that first day, Saturday, of this past weekend. I was shooting off rapid-fire, interview type questions to get to the heart of her story. And that story contained abuse at the hands of her eight-year husband, so bad that it left physical scars on her back. No counseling and no PTSD, at least not from domestic violence, just "time to heal" these last five years, with no potential suiters. A beauty like this and no men? Well, she is in BFE Idaho, I concluded (to myself).

She claimed to be 53 and enlisted since she was 28. She'd done her time and was looking forward to getting her pension, but not living off of it, as she had plans. They sounded good to me. ALL of her answers sounded quite good. She only evaded one of my questions, and she only spoke in broken English a couple of times (her shorter more spontaneous responses). At the time, I believed that was from her upbringing in Prague, Czech Republic. And I read all of her responses with a slightly Eastern European accent. But the more thoughtful responses, were quite intelligent, convincing and fluid. She was careful to repeat phrases back to me like "being present" and "meaningful."

Let me insert here that I now believe hackers, or some lonely Asian girl, was using AI to generate the near perfect responses. The one that stumped and surprised me, though, was when she read my mind. I had asked her to describe the perfect dinner date at her place. She came through with an A+ response even picking the exact movie title I had in mind. That was weirdly coincidental. That was Sunday afternoon, and by then, my suspicions had eased and my caution relaxed. I was starting to believe this was a real woman.

I even shared the story with two people by Monday/Tuesday, one of whom laughed and poo-poo'd it, while the other was hooked with line and sinker. She started planning our future, LOL! I was not at that level, but I was enjoying the conversation, especially since "Jennifer" was so cordial and complimentary. I'm a sucker for words that affirm me. Who isn't?

So Tuesday afternoon is when this farce all unraveled. We'd been speaking for four days, but three of them weren't nearly as intense as the first day, where we spent about four hours online going back and forth. She had immediately given me her Idaho phone number (that was suspicious behavior, especially for a woman living alone) AND moved our conversation to the Telegram app.

But I was online doing some family research and getting bored with it. I decided to try something I'd seen on the show Catfish. Also, there had been another red flag. A second Facebook account came up for this Jennifer person with a similar looking picture taken at fall/wintertme in a coat and blue knit cap. Well, she never responded when questioned about it, so I drug the photo into the search bar of Google. It identified the image as AMANDA DORIS WILLIAMS who had a TikTok account. I do not.

So I asked my sister who does, to look into it. See if she's posted videos of herself. I was told she never appears on camera but that her vids DO include some of her photos AND there are multiple accounts! So now, I'm researching the new name of my "future girlfriend," who had already asked me to come visit her. I still don't know what her END GAME was. But, lo and behold, there were at least four or five Amanda (Doris) Williams accounts on Facebook with similar photos and claims of being an Army Chaplain.

Some of those accounts from a Facebook search.

Now, I'm agitated and a little embarrassed.

The man who believes he's not that gullible has been duped by a Catfish. I waited for her next communication which came while I was en route to the grocery store. I paced the store waiting for her to respond to this text, "I have more questions. Big Surprise there. Can I call you?" Suddenly, at 4:30 Mountain Time, she was too tired for conversation and wanted to put me off until morning. I attempted to call but got only a generic voicemail using the phone number as the greeting.

Suddenly, she's spinning a new web that she's about to be deployed to Poland and her only means of communication would be through Telegram. She even sent me some very computerized sounding voice memo that was clearly the voice of a young Asian girl. When I asked who the Asian bot was, she just laughed. I told her I was deleting the app and that if she was really going overseas on deployment, she'd still have my number to reach me when she got back. I was promised a call the next day to explain everything, but she stuck to her story, said that Amanda Doris Williams was her real, legal name, and that her account had been hacked.

The only account being hacked was potentially mine!

I called her out online and found the LinkedIn account of the poor woman whose identity has been stolen and her likeness used on potentially HUNDREDS of fake accounts across platforms, like Telegram, Instagram, Threads, LinkedIn and Facebook. The real Amanda Williams, MDIV, did become a chaplain just a few short years ago and is a member of the Texas National Guard. From what I can tell, she has served over 20 years in some area of the US Army, but not in Idaho and the photo of her pinning shows her son proudly pinning his mom.

I doubt much of the backstory from Prague to Idaho to Poland was true. Oh, and you can find the real Army Chaplain, a Captain, now, I believe on YouTube. She doesn't have an Eastern European accent, nor does she sound like an Asian anime character. LOL! But I am sure she is a lovely person, as I believed her to be as Jennifer.

I reached out to her LinkedIn profile to say that I'd nearly been catfished by one of the fake accounts posing as her. She is well aware that many of them exist. Is it even legal to impersonate an officer in the US military? Seems like that would be a punishable, federal offense.

I'm sure I'm not the only one it's happened to. Some of those fake accounts on Facebook boast more than 150 ALL MEN friends and followers.

Yes, I remember too well that time I was being Catfished. It took a couple days for the shame and stinging embarrassment to wear off so that I could share my story.

Be careful out there folks. The internet is some sketchy territory. The end.