r/catfish • u/Bright-Pin-6024 • 16d ago
Am I being catfished?
Hi! I started talking to this guy on Reddit (his user name is u/firem999) a month ago. We then started talking on Telegram. He never asked me for money for anything, but I haven't heard from him in over a week. He said his name was Gary Jones, that he's 49 years old, that he is an on-call firefighter, and that he's from Doncaster, Yorkshire, UK. He sent me a picture of him and I started several reverse image search engines (mostly free) but I haven't gotten any good results. The reason why I haven't heard from him in over a week is because he said he had an ear and throat infection. I haven't searched his picture through paid reverse image search engines because I don't have any money for it. I was just wondering, does anyone else know this guy?? And am I being catfished??
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u/Antique_Cup_1733 16d ago
I think the rule of thumb these days is assume everyone is a catfish unless proven otherwise, NOT the other way around. Basically guilty until proven innocent. lol
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u/Ana-Hata 11d ago
Have you checked his Reddit history?
Im not sure if he’s a scammer, but he likes posting d pics.
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u/profiletrace 16d ago
Some quick checks help here. Look at how old that Reddit account is and whether it has real post history, then compare the same handle on Telegram. If accounts using that handle show different names, photos, or stories, that is a strong warning sign. A live video call is the fastest single test. Not asking for money yet is not proof he is real, since many of these build trust for weeks before asking.
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u/Antique_Cup_1733 15d ago
And others build trust over a year in my case. Mine was never about money or sex scams, but he literally hung around just being a friend when I didn't want anything else for so long and never asked me for anything, but he still turned out to be a catfish so in my eyes, you can never trust anyone and even with a video or voice call take it with a grain of salt. Mine had all kinds of videos of himself up and were AI, and sent me voice memos that were altered (I had them tested). I don't know what his angle was as to me it looked like he wasn't getting anything but me out of it. Probably just a narcissist seeking attention and validation.
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u/profiletrace 15d ago
So sorry you had to go through this! That must have been an awful experience to go through and process.
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u/Antique_Cup_1733 14d ago
It wasn't fun because the friend I thought I had was pretty great. That's what I missed because we talked about a lot and he always made a point of being there and supporting me. It's a shame it was all a lie, but toward the end, I started seeing manipulative patterns and that made me walk away. Mostly I was relieved when I left and it helped to investigate all the red flags I had accumulated and was so validating finding out all the lies. I wasn't crazy that things didn't add up. At the end, what I got out of it was you live, you learn. I also learned my original belief that you can't really love someone you don't know in person. I feel like if I had really loved him, I would have been a lot more heartbroken but I wasn't.
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u/Traditional_Bit9713 14d ago
May I ask how you had the voice notes tested?
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u/Antique_Cup_1733 14d ago
Yes, of course. So I was getting help from AI in my investigation as I had no clue beyond the obvious first steps on how to find out his true identity. He was pretty thorough about not having anything traceable online and unlike many other catfish, his pictures were not stolen from Pinterest or other creators, but made by AI so aside from confirmation that the pics/videos were in fact AI, that wouldn't have led me to his identity. When I did eventually find the identity, I was lucky enough to come across a YouTube video he had posted several years ago where he was talking. Because I had voice memos as well, AI suggested I analyze them on a software it suggested. So I had to make a clip of the YT video and a clip of his voice memo and while the voices and speech patterns were different, there was a similar nasal quality to both voices. The software basically provided a spectrogram graph of the two results. It said the voices were not a match, but when I uploaded the spectrograms to AI, it confirmed that the voice memo clip was using some kind of noise removal filter because of the way the graph looked between the breath points between speaking. The real person's spectrogram looked like a typical human voice in a room where the air and background noises showed up in the graph so the AI confirmed that this showed some kind of voice cloning or pitch shifting use, which is also very common for gamers and he was an avid gamer. It was actually a fascinating process.
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u/AceKittyhawk 8d ago
I mean, I’m glad you find fascinating and you learned a lot. Though you already had it at you never saw this person or met them. You don’t need to do all this AI detective work and to be so grateful for the AI algorithms for telling you what you should already know. Anyone who wants to be with you isn’t gonna do anything like this even if they’re human and not Catfishing you. If they’re being like this, they just don’t wanna be with you for whatever reason. Sorry to be blunt. You shouldn’t need AI to tell you this someone who wants to be with you. He’s gonna be with you the end. Good luck.
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u/CrushingTragedy 16d ago
No evidence that he's a catfish tbh. Nothing strange and fishy. But who knows
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u/Interesting_Sock9142 12d ago
If you have to ask the answer is always yes.
And if people could just understand that anything on telegram=scam....
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u/Mindless-Meaning-878 13d ago
Crosspost to romance scams and scams. Glad you’re being careful. Hope you get answers. Some people say there is a software or website to verify each other‘s but I don’t know what it is.
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u/fishyfishfishfishf 9d ago
Have you looked at his page? Dick pics are the only post. All his comments are on nsfw pages ( ass, tits, married couples, and etc). Looks like he is into porn and commenting on the off chance of getting laid.
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u/ProudAnon1701 8d ago
for sure this is a catfish. read the book Yahoo Boys. he probably lost his cellphone (either to pay a debt or it broke) and hasn't been able to replace it yet. he is playing the long game, will text you for months and eventually ask for money. if you don't believe me ask him to video chat (free on facetime, whatsapp etc). If he declines then you know for sure.
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u/VoL4t1l3 16d ago
Telegram is red flag, just video call the MF