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At a time when romance is getting increasingly difficult due to our busy schedules and stress-laden lives, dating applications have become our refuge. They allow us to interact with like-minded people without setting foot outside. Users get to experience a slideshow of perfectly curated profiles, wherein they can right-swipe on their ideal match on their phones. However, the rise of dating apps has also significantly increased catfishing, money scams, sextortion, phishing, and many such frauds, where people fake their identity for several gains.
Says Counselling Psychologist, Rainee Kant, “When we connect with someone online, we can become attached to the way they make us feel before we truly know who they are. Take your time and let trust develop through consistent actions, not just words or the connection you feel.” Here are more tips that will help you prevent you from getting catfished while dating online.
The best way to tell whether the person you've been talking to on a dating app is legit is to ask for a spontaneous video call one fine day. Watch whether they keep delaying or ignoring the request. If they delay it multiple times, this is a sure-shot sign that they are an impersonator and have been planning to catfish you. And in case they do agree to interact on a call, check if the background keeps flickering due to live face swapping, AI usage, or a pre-recorded loop. Kant explains, “You should not feel guilty for asking questions, requesting a video call, or taking things slowly. How someone responds to your boundaries can tell you a lot. If they react with anger, guilt-tripping or pressure simply because you want reassurance, it is worth pausing and reflecting. You don’t need to compromise your comfort to prove that you trust someone.”
It is quite easy to get fooled by a person's well-curated Instagram feed these days. And with the advent of Artificial Intelligence, where an individual can easily create fake images in just a few seconds, creating a fake profile is child's play. Apart from their Instagram and Facebook pages, look for their other social media profiles. For example, LinkedIn and Indeed are a great way to check if your date has been lying about their personal details, including college, work, school and their location.
Asking to meet you at a shady place, stories that do not often align with one another or requesting money, citing a family emergency; these are some signs that the person is planning to catfish you. Beware of such profiles and do not fall into the trap of a money scam, as there have been tons of such cases that take place on dating and matrimonial apps around the world. Popularly known as 'romance scammers', impersonators create fake profiles and try to lure women into sending them money. Kant suggests: “Be particularly cautious if someone you have not met begins asking for money, describes sudden emergencies, suggests investment opportunities or requests intimate images or sensitive personal information. Emotional attachment can make it difficult to question such requests, especially when they feel urgent. Never let guilt, fear, or affection pressure you into compromising your safety.”
If you are feeling a bit wary about the person you matched with on an app, then there is an easy way to figure out if the person has been faking all this while. You can do an easy reverse Google image search using their picture, where the platform saves some properties from the picture and does a deep dive into its dataset to find the source. It is a good way to know if the person is using an original image or trying to be someone else.