How To Avoid Being Catfished With A Little Online Investigation

Your knight (or lady) in shining armor could be waiting online. Or your next hookup. Or even your new best friend. But so are identity thieves, hackers, and other unscrupulous folks who range from not-so-nice to downright nasty.

Online dating is like a playground. Most people you meet are good. They're out there to have fun and meet each other. But a few of those people are bullies, and your best bet is to steer clear of them.

One of the biggest online dating bullies is the catfish, a person who pretends to be someone they're not and uses that false identity to lure others into deceptive online relationships.

How do you investigate a potential date if something feels fishy? It's time for some digital research. It might seem creepy at first (and if you were stalking your ex, it would be), but in this case you get a pass. You have to take care of yourself, and a good offense is the best defense.

Look for the following red flags during your investigation:

• Their profile looks like it was put together in 30 seconds. The profile of a serious dater should look like time and effort went into it.
• They don't have social media accounts. Maybe they just think they're being radical by staying off social media. Maybe. But it's far more likely in this day and age that someone who doesn't have any social media accounts doesn't exist.
• They have more than one profile on a single social media site. How many Facebook accounts does one person need? Answer: one. More than that could mean something suspect is going on.
• Their social accounts have very few friends. Most of us are on social media to be social. If an account only has a handful of friends, you have to wonder what else it exists for.
• Their photos don't look right. Are they all modeling photos with no pictures of activities? Has no one else posted a photo of them? Are there no signs of family or friends in any of the pictures? Are their photos completely devoid of tags? These are all possible red flags.
• They contact you outside of your dating service. You've been chatting on OkCupid and suddenly they reach out to you on Facebook. Time to take a step back and reconsider who you're talking to. Even if they're not a catfish, that move shows a poor sense of boundaries.
• Their profile is copy/pasted. Some scammers get lazy and use the same info for multiple profiles, or steal the info from real profiles. Run a Google search to see if the same text pops up in multiple profiles. You can also run a reverse image search to do the same for photos.

If you see any of these signs – or worse, a cluster of them – you may be better off backing away.