Online practice of creating a fake profile to form relationships with unsuspecting users

U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID) receives hundreds of reports a month from individuals who have fallen victim to a scam perpetrated by a person impersonating a U.S. Soldier online.

Victims of these “romance scams” report they became involved in an online relationship with someone they believed to be a U.S. Soldier who then began asking for money for various false service-related needs. Victims of these scams can lose tens of thousands of dollars and face a slim likelihood of recovering any of it.

Victims may encounter these romance scammers on a legitimate dating website or social media platform, but they are not U.S. Soldiers. To perpetrate this scam, the scammers take on the online persona of a current or former U.S. Soldier, and then, using photographs of a Soldier from the internet, build a false identity to begin prowling the web for victims.

Never send money to someone claiming to be a Soldier!

The most common scheme involves criminals, often from other countries -- most notably from West African countries -- pretending to be U.S. Soldiers serving in a combat zone or other overseas location. These crooks often present documents and other "proof" of their financial need when asking their victims to wire money to them.

CID's Computer Crime Investigative Unit also cautions Soldiers themselves to be on the guard for "sextortion scams." In these scams, criminals engage in online sexual activity with unsuspecting Service members and then demand money or favors in exchange for not publicizing potentially embarrassing images, video or information.

Such scams, when they involve dating sites, pose a unique challenge in the fight against impostors and identity thieves, because on such sites a dating profile is often required to conduct a search for fake accounts. That makes it difficult for organizations to monitor those sites for impersonators using a Soldier’s or key leaders’ information in a scam.

In addition, it is not possible to remove dating site profiles without legitimate proof of identity theft or a scam. If you suspect fraud on a dating site, take a screenshot of any advances for money or impersonations and report the account on the platform immediately.

Impersonations

The practice of impersonating Soldiers for financial gain is common. When impostor accounts are identified, it is important to report the accounts to the host platforms. Twitter allows users to create parody, satire, newsfeed, commentary, and fan accounts that mimic organizations if they indicate that they are “unofficial” or “fan” accounts.

Identifying an impostor

If you suspect you have identified an impostor account, you should confirm the account is not registered on the U.S. Army Social Media Directory.

Impostors are damaging not only to an individual’s reputation but also to the U.S. Army. It is important to know the warning signs of a scam or the common identifiers associated with an impostor account.

• The account is not registered and/or verified.
• The account has very few photos.
• The photos are posted in the same date range.
• The account has few followers or comments.
• The account name and photos do not match.
• There are obvious grammatical errors.
• Key information is missing.

Official accounts will not send friend requests. If you receive a request from an account claiming to be a senior leader, report it.

The individuals or groups establishing impostor accounts can be clever — using different usernames, similar spellings, personal photos, official photos, and even changing the nametape on Soldier’s uniforms. Remember, anyone in the U.S. Army Family is vulnerable.

Staff Sergeant Salvatore Giunta, Medal of Honor Recipient, was impersonated on Twitter before being awarded the Medal of Honor. It is important to be aware that Twitter allows parody and fan accounts https://support.twitter.com/articles/106373. Once notified, Twitter marked the account as a “tribute” or “fan” account.

Reporting impostors

Soldiers, especially leaders, are prime targets for identity thieves who will use images posted online to create the fake accounts. It is good practice to search sites regularly for impostors. Impostor accounts are violations of terms of use agreements. Most social media platforms have a reporting system that allows users to report an individual who is pretending to be someone else.

If the platform is unresponsive and the impersonation becomes a threat to reputation or personal safety, contact your local public affairs office or the Digital Media Division for assistance.

“Catfishing,” at least in the online world, refers to the practice of setting up a fictitious online profile, most often for the purpose of luring another into a fraudulent romantic relationship.  The Urban Dictionary defines a “catfish” as: “someone who pretends to be someone they’re not using Facebook or other social media to create false identities, particularly to pursue deceptive online romances.”  So, to “catfish someone” is to set up a fake social media profile with the goal of duping that person into falling for the false persona.  And if this has happened to you, you my friend have been “catfished.”

Of course people have been falsifying information online for decades and users have been putting fake information on social media profiles at least since MySpace launched in 2003, probably before.  This became more widely known as catfishing after a 2010 documentary film highlighted the real-world ramifications of online relationships.  In late 2012, MTV launched a reality TV show to capitalize on the interest in this activity.

A few weeks ago Notre Dame football star Manti Te’o became the poster child for catfishing when he was the apparent subject of one’s online angling.  As a public figure, with a prominent social media footprint he was a prime target.  Te’o developed an online relationship with someone he knew as Lennay Kekua.  It is difficult to know how deep the relationship was, but he did refer to her as his “girlfriend” and mentioned repeatedly that he loved her.

Te’o amassed a wide following when it was learned that his grandmother and girlfriend (Kekua) died on the same day early in the 2012 football season.  As a Michigan State football fan, I became interested in the Te’o story because his inspired performance during his first game after the deaths led to a crushing defeat of my beloved Green and White. Soon, it seemed, much of America was watching Te’o and the Fighting Irish.

While it has been confirmed that his grandmother did in fact die, his girlfriend did not. Media investigations revealed that she had never existed in the first place.  In mid-January the sportsblog Deadspin broke the story that Kekua was a fictitious online persona created by a friend of Te’o’s.  From the information we currently know, it appears most likely that Te’o was an unsuspecting victim, though some question his innocence and suggest this was all just an elaborate publicity stunt. In a statement released to the media, Te’o has maintained that he was a target: “To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone’s sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating.”  Whether a victim or a co-conspirator, the Te’o tribulations have led to renewed interest in a form of cyberbullying that has been perpetrated against others for many years.

Catfishing as Cyberbullying

Misleading another on social media with the intent to cause harm is not new.  In 2006, 13-year-old Megan Meier began an online relationship with a boy she knew as Josh Evans. For almost a month, Megan corresponded with this boy exclusively online because he said he didn’t have a phone and was homeschooled.  One day in October of that year, Megan received a message from Josh on her MySpace profile saying “I don’t know if I want to be friends with you any longer because I hear you’re not nice to your friends.”  This was followed by bulletins being posted through MySpace calling Megan “fat” and a “slut.”  After seeing the messages, Megan became distraught and ran up into her room.  A few minutes later, Megan’s mother Tina found her daughter hanging in her bedroom closet.  Though she rushed her daughter to the hospital, Megan died the next day.

Six weeks after their daughter’s death, the Meier family learned that the boy with whom Megan had been corresponding never existed.  Josh Evans (and his online profile) was created by Lori Drew, a neighbor and the mother of one of Megan’s friends.  She created the profile as a way to spy on what Megan was saying about her daughter. Drew was eventually acquitted in federal court for her role in Megan’s death.

Another, more extreme example, is the case of Anthony Stancl, a New Berlin, Wisconsin, 18-year-old who in 2009 impersonated two girls (“Kayla” and “Emily”) on Facebook.  He befriended and formed online romantic relationships with a number of boys in his high school (again, while posing and interacting as these two girls).  He then convinced at least 31 of those boys to send him nude pictures or videos of themselves.  As if that weren’t bad enough, Stancl – still posing as a girl and still communicating through Facebook – tried to convince more than half to meet with a male friend and let him perform sexual acts on them.  If they refused, “she” told them that the pictures and videos would be released for all to see.  Seven boys actually submitted to this horrific request, and allowed Stancl to perform sex acts on them, or they performed sex acts on him.  He took numerous pictures of these encounters with his cell phone, and the police eventually found over 300 nude images of male teens on his computer.  He was charged with five counts of child enticement, two counts of second-degree sexual assault of a child, two counts of third-degree sexual assault, possession of child pornography, and repeated sexual assault of the same child and received a 15-year sentence in prison in early 2010.

Misrepresenting Yourself

Anytime someone uses technology in a way that causes repeated harm to another, it can be classified as cyberbullying.  Setting up a fake online profile and communicating with someone for the purpose of tricking them into developing a romantic relationship – only to break up with or otherwise harm them – is wrong.  It also violates Facebook’s terms of service: “You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission” and “You will not bully, intimidate, or harass any user.”

That said, some people use pseudonyms or alter-egos online to safeguard their identity.  There are a lot of legitimate reasons for doing this and as long as your behaviors do not hurt others, or mislead them in a way that causes harm to them, this is probably just fine. It really comes down to intent: Are you masking your identity to protect yourself or to cause harm to others? It is one thing to be protective of your real identity for personal privacy reasons, but it is another thing entirely to create an alternative identity for the purpose of humiliating, harassing, or hurting someone else.

Some might argue that catfishing is harmless Internet fun and that people should know better than to enter into any significant relationship with another person they only know digitally. It is true that people need to take care not to put themselves into situations where they could fall for someone who doesn’t really exist.  However, that does not make it OK to use technology to mislead someone, and leads to a “victim-blaming” mentality that gets us nowhere.  To be sure, everyone needs to be skeptical and cautious when entering into online relationships.  Those who do should consider using Skype, Facetime, or some other video-chatting service that will allow you to see and interact in real-time with the person you are communicating with. You should be suspicious if the other person continues to be hesitant about wanting you to see them in real life or online.  Also, don’t give out too much personal information, especially early on, and never go by yourself to meet someone in person who you only know from online. Go with a friend – or better yet a group of friends. They can protect you if something turns out to be not what it seems.

It is easy to be blinded by feelings of affection, especially when someone is giving you more positive attention than you have ever gotten from anyone else before.  Just remember to stop and think about the possibility that someone might be taking advantage of you and proceed with the utmost caution. As they say, if something (or in this case someone) seems too good to be true, it probably is.

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What best describes a hotspot?

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