TO fitness and lifestyle The trainer who discovered ‘disturbing’ catfishing dating profiles with her photos fears her image could be used to “put someone in a potentially dangerous situation”.
Sarah Harker, who is happily in a relationship, says she found it funny at first when a friend found out he was dating her. application Tinder.
However, when he shared a screenshot of the profile with his followers, more fake accounts using his images came to light.
The 32-year-old from Newcastle upon Tyne said: “I first got a text from my friend with a Tinder profile screenshot and I laughed.
“If I’m being honest, I was more offended that they put me at 38. But once I shared that photo with my 7,000 followers on Instagram, people started messaging me to tell me they’d seen me on other sites.”
“While it could be seen as a form of flattery, it is also extremely dangerous for my business as people may believe these profiles are a representation of me and I have no idea what is being said in messages sent from these accounts. “.
“A message I got said this catfish was trying to set up a meeting. That’s when I lost all sense of humor about it.”
(Image: Tell your stories)
Sarah learned of 12 different fake profiles made up of images of her vacationing in a bikini and snuggling with her border terriers, Baxter and Dougal.
The images have been taken from her instagram page @sarahlouskitchen where she promotes her lifestyle and physical training and nutritious homemade recipes.
(Image: Tell your stories)
She said: “I was on Bumble and Hinge as well as Tinder.
“It made me uneasy to realize how dangerous this could be and that people could be talking to these profiles thinking I was on the other side of them.
(Image: Tell your stories)
“I don’t like to think that my face could be used to put someone in a potentially dangerous situation.”
But when Sarah contacted all the dating apps to let them know they were impersonating her, she says Tinder told her on their live chat service that they couldn’t do anything unless she was a member and reported it directly.
(Image: Tell your stories)
Sarah said: “I shouldn’t have to be a member to be able to report a profile that was falsely impersonating me.
“I was seriously concerned that these profiles could be set up without any type of identification being used.”
(Image: Tell your stories)
Sarah created accounts to report anything she was aware of, but she worries that more could come out at any time.
She added: “Knowing that there are so few protections when being cloned online has left me feeling really strange about the world of social media.
(Image: Tell your stories)
“These platforms should implement more stringent security controls today to protect everyone involved.”
A Tinder spokesperson said: “Catfishing is a violation of our Community Guidelines and Terms of Use, and members who are caught catfishing are removed from our platform.
“If someone believes they are being spoofed on Tinder, they should contact our support team with the relevant details here. From there, our team will quickly find and remove any matching profiles.
“In addition, we encourage our members to look for the ‘blue tick’, which indicates that the member’s profile picture is genuine and has been verified by Tinder, through our photo verification program.”
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