How to Protect Yourself When Meeting People Online

A catfish is a person who pretends to be someone else. They build fake profiles on sites like Facebook, Myspace, Match.com, Twitter, and Instagram, usually to chase fraudulent online romances (Urban Dictionary, 2015). So ask yourself a few questions. Are you looking for love online? Have you actually spoken to this potential partner on the phone? Have the two of you ever met face to face? If the answer to those last two is no, there's a real chance you're being catfished. The warning sign gets louder the longer you've been talking, especially when your love interest keeps producing one reason after another for why a call or a meeting can't happen.

Plenty of people find relationships through dating websites, and the reasons vary. Some are too busy to go out hunting for a partner. Others feel shy, or struggle with self-confidence, and a screen feels safer than a bar. A few just want to try something different. None of that matters much next to one basic point: if you're going to date online, you have to look out for yourself. How can you tell whether the person you've fallen for is actually who they claim to be? Read on, because what follows is a short guide to keeping scammers at arm's length. Stay careful whenever you meet anyone from the internet.

Hold back your personal information. When you're not yet sure the person on the other end is real, keep your contact details to yourself. You genuinely do not know who is sitting at that keyboard. You might believe you're chatting with a Brad Pitt look-alike from the profile photo while the reality is a self-conscious middle-aged housewife. You might think you're talking to a young woman and be talking to an underage girl instead. So go slow. Don't hand over your full name, your home address, where you work, or where you happen to be at that moment until you've talked on the phone and met in person, somewhere public.

Run a background check. Yes, this sounds a bit extreme, maybe even a little paranoid, but it can be worth it. A check typically runs somewhere between $20 and $100, sometimes more, and that fee buys you some protection from con artists and genuinely dangerous people. If you're comfortable doing so, tell your online suitor you'd like to have one done. Should they fly off the handle, explain calmly that knowing they have no criminal record will help you feel safe before you meet. And if they attack you for even asking? Don't go out with them. Someone with nothing to hide has no reason to be furious about it. If telling them feels too awkward, skip the announcement and just pay attention to what the check turns up. Any dishonesty is a reason to walk away. What else might they be shading: their looks, their relationship status, their job? If you decide to meet them anyway, regardless of what the check says, understand you could be gambling with your safety. The person who shows up may look nothing like the profile. Pick a public spot, and bring a friend or two along.

Check the phone number and the address. If you have both, look them up on a people-finder such as whitepages.com. Does your online love's name come up attached to them? If it doesn't, odds are decent you're not talking to the person you think you're talking to. One caveat: the number or address might belong to their mother, a sibling, or a parent, and you won't know for certain without a proper background check. You can always ask directly, though brace yourself for offense and anger, and don't expect a liar to confess, because that isn't going to happen. If you keep talking or decide to meet anyway, be careful. Public place, a friend or two with you. When bringing someone along isn't possible, at least tell a couple of friends where you're headed, who you're meeting, their name, and when you expect to be home. Once you arrive, if you can manage it, text your friends the person's license plate number. Use your head when you meet someone you've only known through a screen.

Search the profile picture. Drop their photo into Google Images and see what comes back. If that same picture turns up across several sites under different names, something is off, and you may be looking at a catfish. There's no honest reason for one person to be running multiple profiles on various dating sites. You might even find the photo on modeling pages, which usually means your online mate lifted it and passed it off as their own. Dating someone who steals other people's photos is not a position you want to be in. Here's the part people get wrong: don't confront them, not over the phone and definitely not in person. You don't actually know who you've been chatting with, they could be dangerous, and you don't want them turning up at your door. Just fade out. Taper off the conversation little by little until they're gone from your life entirely.

References: McMullen, L. (2013). Tips for safe and healthy online dating. U.S. News: Health. MTV. (2015). Catfish: The TV show. Urban Dictionary. (2015). Catfish.