It seems like not only one of the oldest but one of the biggest fads on the internet; creating false profiles.
Usually I am pretty warey of fake profiles, I generally look for the main watch points to see if it is a fake:
1. The photographs are too polished
2. The descriptions are vague
3. The photographs resemble magazine scans
The biggest one...
4. You recognise the celebrity used on the picture.
I browse a lot through myspace (I don't use it for dating), link removed, okcupid, friendfinder and a few others so I generally know how to spot a fake. This week however I was, for lack of a better word, devastated, when I fell victim to a fake profile.
I was looking on link removed to see if there was anyone interesting from my area, I found a few people that matched up to me so I struck up some conversations. I was talking to 3 guys in total, two of them seemed nice, but not interested, but were happy to just chat anyway, the third guy was very friendly and very interested in talking to me.
According to his profile, he was a performing arts teacher at a local comprehensive college, he even named it, he talked about being a keen jogger, as their are quite a few in the town which he said he was from, and was wanting someone nice he could spend time with and go jogging with. We discussed interests, what working as a teacher was like and were getting on very well.
It went so far as arranging to meet up for a drink in the local pub, I arrived a little early as I was a bit nervous then got a text on my mobile saying he was very sorry but he couldn't come, at the last minute he had got a call from one of his workmates and he was needed at the school. I thought this was fair enough and said we could make it another day.
Last night I got another text asking if I would like to meet up again soon, I agreed, however this morning I sent him a text telling him thanks but no thanks and not to ring me again.
Why?
Because as I was randomly looking through wikipedia, I came accross the person he had been using for his display pictures.
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These were the two images he was using on his link removed profile, and you can imagine my shock and to be honest, utter dismay when they came up on a google image search. It seems 'Mark' although I doubt that was his real name, was using pictures of an actor called Boris Kodjoe.
Why did I fall for this? Possibly because I have never seen anything that he has starred in, also the pictures he selected seemed very much just like candid regular pictures. I admit, I was a fool, I even had to go smoke two cigerettes to calm down.
(At this point I just need to point out it's 8.15 am here in England so this is all a bit early in the morning for me.)
I notified link removed about his profile, I have yet to hear anything from 'mark.'
So, I'll ask everyone else, has anyone else ever fallen victim to this game people like to play? Has anyone ever done it themselves? I have to tell you, after this I feel like a complete idiot, I feel betrayed, I feel devastated.
I get annoyed when I see people on myspace pretending to be Kiera Knightley or Tom Felton, now I'm just very angry about the whole thing.
Once I had assumed that link removed was a fairly safe arena for people to talk and meet other people, I'm pretty much ready to sign off the whole online dating thing now.
