Godson (22) is being catfished.

[jillpia]

Please can anyone recommend any organisations which help people to assist loved ones to break free from catfishers? My lovely naive godson has been taken in by someone US based who is fleecing him regularly. He has been spoken to many times by his parents who are at their wits’ end. This person claims to need money to release an inheritance and has said that she wants to marry him. He believes that he is in love with her. Any advice or suggestions would be most appreciated!

Find the show for love or money on bbc iplayer and make him watch a few episodes.

I guarantee his situation will come up n there and he can see how others have been scammed in the same way. The fees to release inheritance is one of the most common scams.

Have you tried a reverse image search on the photos he’s been sent? That would potentially show the real person whose photos have been used to create this fake person.

The person may not even be in the US, could be anywhere in the world. If you Google romance scams you’ll find lots of uncovered similar scams but not sure how you get your godson to see it’s a scam.
One idea might be to say you’ll buy the “girl “ an air ticket to come to you where your lawyer will sort the inheritance. Obviously you don’t buy a ticket or send money, you ask to chat on FaceTime and they’ll need to show you their passport. Might scare them off.

There's a BBC podcast called 'Love, Janessa' about catfishing and loads of different scammers all using photos of the same woman. Definitely worth a Google reverse image search (and a listen).

Hi, thank you for your reply. He has been FaceTiming her occasionally and his parents have tried reverse imaging but nothing came up.

Has she had her camera on on facetime? I seem to remember in that podcast they had women who were paid to do video calls as part of the scam. This is really large scale organised crime. Just because there's someone on a video call doesn't make it real. He needs to understand that.

Not sure about that but I’ll alert his parents to this. Thank you.

Please watch the bbc programme of you can. They show examples of how FaceTiming can be faked by using reels from the profile they’ve stolen.

Its clever. They play a reel or video that the real person in photos has posted online then use their own voice. They’ll normally then say it’s a bad connection and drop off.

With the reverse image search, try flipping the photos as well as they’ll only come up if they’re the same way round and scammers reverse them

I work in financial crime prevention and anti money laundering and I see these scams all day every day.

Get the police involved they're very well trained in this and it will prevent it happening to others

It's probably happening to a few people at the same time tbh

The only suggestion I could make was to ask the police if they could send someone to talk to him about it and warn him- but I’m not sure they would do that?

Have you tried pimeyes and Facecheck.id? They are the best sites for facial recognition. Better than reverse images on google

There's a YouTube group called social catfish who also have a website that has tools to help you spot catfish. For example, being able to copy and paste their chat into a box to see if there's a common lie being told by scammers. And a link to a fake gift card that if they click on to receive, will tell you their location (so obv if it's Nigeria or China or something, its a scam).

Reverse image search on Google will also show you if the picture is being used elsewhere. Eg: other dating sites. And obviously, if the names are different...

If he's a vulnerable person the local police would definitely send an officer round to advise him.

Chad Huber on Tik Tok has some interesting videos, 'catfishing the catfish'. Shows how he catches out these scammers.

There’s a bizarre podcast called Sweet Bobby about a catfish situation. Worth a listen. I used to work in fraud for a money transfer company - it’s really hard to get people to believe even when confronted with evidence. Good luck.

Just a note too that often people don't WANT to believe they've been scammed. Partly, if they've given money already but also, if they are lonely in their everyday life and so this person is their lifeline.

So a discussion of the 'sunken cost falacy' with him might be useful (throwing good money after bad so that the bad won't all be for nothing).

As would anything that encourages him to get out of the house and spend time with real people and basically make new connections.

Also, learning how to spot how both cults and narcissistic abusers in general operate and brainwash their victims may help. Plenty of YouTube videos on that. Things like 'the narcissist guilt trip' might be worth searching for. Or 'common lies narcissists tell'.

Thank you all so much for your helpful comments and advice - I have passed everything on to his mum. She is going to take in the tv shows and podcasts to learn more for herself and then use them to start a discussion with him. I fear it may take a while to help him through this.

Thank you for those suggestions, they have helped me find the profile whose pics have been lifted by scammers who have been scamming a friend for years. He absolutely will not hear that they are scammers but this might just be the thing that helps open his eyes.

Oh you’re more than welcome! Us girls usually use those sites to check guys that we are chatting to/dating etc see who they say they are! Me and hundreds of women on a particular Facebook page have found so so many catfish/cheaters/liars (even convicted sex/DV offenders and Paedophiles) from using those 2 sites. It’s saved a lot of heartbreak (and saved us from dangerous men)

Police are trained to handle these crimes and will take it very seriously. It needs to be reported asap.