Catfishing

What is catfishing?

Catfishing is building a fake online identity — stolen or invented photos, a false name, a backstory constructed to hold up under a few casual questions — to draw someone into a relationship they would never start if they knew who was actually writing back. The name comes from the 2010 documentary Catfish, where a filmmaker discovered the woman he'd spent months falling for online had never existed the way her photos claimed. Sixteen years later, the trick still works — mostly because the feeling of being understood arrives faster than the doubt does.

The scale of it is not a rumor. In 2024, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center logged 17,910 Confidence/Romance fraud complaints totaling $672,009,052 in reported losses — one crime category, one year, complaints alone. Not every catfish is running a six-figure scheme; plenty exist for reasons that have nothing to do with your wallet. But the mechanism underneath both is identical: a face that isn't real, attached to a story built to survive a little scrutiny.

Why do people catfish other people online?

Money is the headline reason, but far from the only one. Some catfish are running structured financial schemes — the tactics that show up most often in reported dating scams — while others are testing a version of themselves they don't quite believe is loveable as-is: younger, thinner, more confident, or simply someone with less to explain. A smaller group does it purely for attention, or as harassment. The identity is fake either way; the reason behind it rarely is.

"An individual believes they are in a relationship (family, friendly, or romantic) and are tricked into sending money, personal and financial information, or items of value to the perpetrator." — FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, 2024 Internet Crime Report

That's the textbook version — the one with a paper trail. Most catfishing never reaches a complaint, because most of it isn't chasing your bank details at all. It's chasing attention, the ask never surfaces, and the account just quietly moves on to someone else.

What are the warning signs of a catfish?

None of these prove anything alone — plenty of people hate video calls, and real relationships sometimes move fast too. What matters is the pattern, not any single item. Here's what tends to show up together once someone is actually maintaining a fake identity, rather than just being camera-shy:

1. They always have a reason to skip video — a broken camera, bad signal, a job that "doesn't allow it," repeated across different days
2. The photos look too finished — magazine-lit, consistently flattering, the same handful recycled for months with nothing candid mixed in
3. The story shifts on details they should just know — a hometown, a job title, a sibling's name that changes between conversations
4. "I love you" arrives before a real conversation has — usually within days, aimed at intensity instead of familiarity
5. Meeting in person keeps almost happening — a plan gets made, then a believable reason cancels it, every single time
6. Money, a gift card, or crypto eventually enters the chat — dressed up as an emergency, a shipping fee, or a one-time favor

Dating platforms are fighting the same pattern from their side of the interface. Match Group's public transparency reporting shows more than 610,000 accounts pulled down for scams and spam in a single year — most of them fake from the moment they were created, not scams that developed later.

How is catfishing different from a romance scam?

Catfishing is the fake identity itself; a romance scam is what happens when that identity gets pointed at your bank account. Every romance scam runs on a catfish underneath it, but not every catfish is running a scam — someone pretending to be twenty years younger, or hiding a difficult stretch of their own life behind a stranger's photos, is catfishing without ever asking you for a cent. The overlap is real, but the two categories aren't identical.

How can you verify who you're actually talking to?

A few minutes of real checking beats weeks of wondering. None of these require special tools, and doing even two of them tends to settle the question fast — either the person on the other end holds up under a little scrutiny, or the story starts to visibly strain.

The reverse-image-search step alone catches a surprising share of fake profiles before a conversation goes anywhere serious — the same instinct that makes writing something real harder to fake than a borrowed photo.

How does Anketta's text-first design change catfishing risk?

It removes the exact lure a stolen photo depends on. Before a match forms, nothing in Anketta's browsing feed or profile grid shows a photo — so there's no attractive face to fabricate at the top of the funnel in the first place. Interest starts with highlighting an actual line of someone's manuscript, then pressing the heart, which is a slower and far more specific thing to fake convincingly than five recycled photos.

A stranger can still lie in prose, and the app doesn't claim otherwise — but sustaining a fabricated identity across paragraphs, over multiple conversations, is a different order of effort than swapping a headshot. And once two people match, phone number, email, and address stay server-blurred right up until that match forms — the information a scam usually wants first is exactly what a fabricated identity has to work hardest to reach.

Quick answers about catfishing

What does catfishing mean?

Catfishing means creating a fake online identity — usually stolen or invented photos paired with a false name and backstory — to build a relationship with someone who has no way of knowing the real person behind it. It can be romantic, platonic, or purely for attention, and it doesn't require a request for money to count.

Is catfishing a crime?

Catfishing itself isn't automatically illegal — pretending to be someone else online, on its own, usually isn't a crime in most places. It becomes one the moment it's used to defraud someone financially, harass them, impersonate a real person without consent, or target a minor, which is where most catfishing-related prosecutions actually land.

Why would someone catfish if they don't want money?

Plenty of catfishing has nothing to do with financial gain. Some people are testing whether a different version of themselves — younger, thinner, more confident — gets treated better than the one they live in. Others are lonely, closeted, or simply enjoy an attention their real profile never attracted.

Does a video call prove someone isn't catfishing you?

It proves a lot, but not everything. A live video call is one of the hardest things to fake convincingly, so most catfish accounts stall or refuse it outright. A short call from someone using a stolen identity is still possible, so pair it with the other checks rather than treating it as final proof on its own.

What should you do if you suspect you're being catfished?

Slow down and stop sending anything — money, gift cards, personal photos, documents — until you've verified who you're actually talking to. Reverse-image-search their photos, ask for an unscheduled video call, and if money ever comes up, stop the conversation and report the account to the platform.

Can catfishing happen without any romantic intent?

Yes. Fake identities show up in friendships, professional networking, fandom communities, and activism the same way they do in dating — anywhere a persona can attract attention or trust that the real person couldn't get on their own. Dating just produces the most reported cases, because the stakes feel personal.

How common is catfishing really?

There's no single number that captures every case, because most catfishing never gets reported at all — no money changes hands, so no one files a complaint. What is measured, like the FBI's 17,910 Confidence/Romance fraud complaints in 2024 alone, almost certainly understates the real total by a wide margin.

Every catfish is betting you won't look closely enough to notice the mask is paper. Look anyway.