[impersonated]

I'm looking for advice on a similar issue.

Somebody is impersonating me on dating sites and blackmailing women. They convince their victims to send nude photos, and then they threaten to send the photos to their families. The scammer (or scammers) use photos of me that used to be publicly available on social media. They also use my real name, presumably so that the victims see a legitimate LinkedIn profile when they google "me".

Years ago, I got called to a meeting with my work's Human Resources department. The victim had looked me up and emailed my company. HR told me that "I" had to stop doing this. When I realized what had happened, I knew that I couldn't do anything to make it stop. Thankfully HR didn't take any action, but the whole time I worked there I had low-level background anxiety that another victim would contact them.

Last month, a different victim messaged me on LinkedIn because she was suspicious of "my" profile on OKCupid. She sent me screenshots of the profile and messages. The scammer used obviously non-native english, so at least there's some credible evidence that it's not actually me.

I've only become aware of the two incidents above, but I'm sure there are many other victims. I emailed OKCupid to ask them to block the impersonator, but I don't know if they can even stop him from re-registering, and there are other dating sites. I no longer have recent photos publicly available, and I've locked down all social media, but I don't want to delete my LinkedIn.

What else can I do? Has anyone else had something like this happen to them?

[dpifke]

If you can prove you've suffered damages due to this (which maybe you can, if it affected your employment), you could sue John Doe, which would get you subpoena power against OKCupid.

You probably wouldn't be able to collect from the scammer (who is likely in another country), but I guarantee you'll get OKCupid's legal department's attention, and they might be able to put a stop to it.

The lawsuit would also create a paper trail that you can use to exonerate yourself in the future.

Sadly, this is unlikely to be the sort of case an attorney would take on contingency.

[impersonated]

Thank you. I hadn't considered legal options. I would prefer not to have a public lawsuit attached to my name -- I know, that's the point, but I don't want to call attention to this.

I'm thinking about doing something private but formalized, like having a lawyer send a letter to OKCupid summarizing recent events and demanding they take down profiles impersonating me. I could share that letter with my (new) employer if another victim ever contacted them directly. I know it wouldn't really prove anything, but it might be convincing to HR. Last time, the HR representative didn't seem to believe me, which definitely made me feel terrible and theoretically could have affected my career.

[29083011397778]

> but I don't want to call attention to this

I mean, neither does OKCupid. If they don't want to play ball, going wide (notably, with an attorney) only seems to benefit you: current and future employers see it's not actually you doing this, OKCupid risks losing the only thing they want (women that trust the app), and other women get a heads up.

[dvtrn]

The lawsuit would also create a paper trail that you can use to exonerate yourself in the future.

Thanks to the tragedy of a common name in my country, I’ve had to petition multiple jurisdictions to procure paperwork for a very similar reason.

Only became a necessity when applying for a job and being asked, once the background check came back for someone who had not only the same name but also birthdate 700 miles away if I had been convicted of extortion and blackmail.

How that had never come up before I hit my late thirties is anyone’s guess, since the conviction was recent enough to get someone looking more closely, but not so long ago that again I’m surprised that moment was the first anyone had asked me about it after doing a background check.

Long story short, a few letters to the jurisdictions in question and $500 worth of help from a local attorney and I soon had official papers saying “No, the Bob Loblaw applying for your job is not THAT Bob Loblaw we threw the book at.”

[robbiep]

I had a similar problem, except he raped a woman (convinced her to come to an address, come inside, all lights off, no talking). She contacted me via LinkedIn when he ghosted her. Got police involved but took 18 months to get all the information lined up from bumble and Snapchat (ie phone numbers etc). He was deported for domestic violence before they could arrest him.

Trying to get plenty of fish, bumble, tinder to respond was impossible.

Since there were very few photos of me publicly available online I feel I should be able to blacklist photos of me to these providers so people can’t use prepackaged profiles of me.

After he was deported, I was messaged by about 15 women in the US who were catfished by the same profile(s).

I feel there is some forum somewhere where people pass around these prepackaged profiles of people who they feel are good ‘candidates’ to impersonate.

Really disturbing

[impersonated]

God, that's awful. Thank you for sharing. I'm sorry for you and especially the women involved.

It's horrible to think that my photos are being used for this and there's nothing I can do about it. Even if I cover myself legally, people are still going to be victimized. I hope I never have to involve the police.

[lostgame]

This is nightmare fuel. I can’t even imagine what you’re going through.

[curun1r]

Facebook has a similar problem. They’ve known about it for more than a decade…it was probably reported long before I reported it, but I first saw and reported in in 2008. But recently a friend of my mom was taken for $1000, so they’ve obviously not taken the simple steps necessary to prevent it.

The scam is basically to find someone with a lot of friends and copy their profile, pictures and all. Once they’ve done that, they reconnect and have an emergency that requires the friend send money. People naturally see the profile photo and name and think their friend is in real trouble.

With all of Facebook’s efforts to de-anonymize users, how is it possible that they’ve done nothing to prevent foreign scanners from blatantly copying accounts?

[lolpython]

Sorry to hear about that problem. Maybe you could put a warning about the impersonator on your LinkedIn bio.

[impersonated]

Thank you for the recommendation! I'm having trouble phrasing a warning in a way that's clear to a scam victim, without seeming weird or off-putting to business contacts. It's somewhat upsetting to think about this too much, which may be why I'm struggling.

Would you mind suggesting how to word it?

[alsetmusic]

> Would you mind suggesting how to word it?

Here’s a first draft:

NOTICE: It has recently come to my attention that someone is impersonating me, by using my name and photos, to take advantage of people on some social apps. If you saw my profile on a dating app or similar service, it isn't me. I'm not on any of those platforms. Thank you and please stay safe.

edit: removed scare quotes

[impersonated]

Thank you, I really appreciate your help with this.

[Nextgrid]

Yep definitely, put it as the first thing in the bio so it hopefully gets indexed by search engines. Maybe even set up a website that ranks high for your name so you can warn others.

[TameAntelope]

I would be thinking very hard about all the ways I could prove, definitively, that I could not be the person doing this to others.

[vorpalhex]

Watermark your photos. Indicate anywhere and everywhere anyone using your photos is probably an imposter.

As others have said, you probably need to start the legal train rolling so you can subpeona OkCupid and co.

[impersonated]

The horse is out of the barn, unfortunately. The recent victim's screenshots had the same photos as the first incident (HR showed them to me).

I no longer have any public photos available except on LinkedIn. I will consider taking that down.

[vorpalhex]

You may be able to spoiler the photos by posting them to several stock photo sites and meme sites. Basically flood them so they are obviously random internet finds.

This does come with obvious downsides.

[ghaff]

Which really isn't an option for a lot of people. Even leaving aside personal stuff, I probably have hundreds of photos associated with conference talks and the like.

[charlie0]

The issue with pushing this responsibility onto companies if that they can only help with reactive measures. They can't easily take a proactive approach. How does a company prove someone is not who they say they are when all they require is an email and maybe a name to create an account?

At best, they can make it slightly harder to impersonate a user by requiring MFA and detecting duplicate accounts (ie, accounts using the same picture). I think stuff like this will only get worse over time.