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Every time I’m dead on with catfishers and reverse image search proves my gut feeling right. .. also it’s always some US army veteran. Scammers really like their profiles.
Had a cat fishing attempt on
@hinge today by someone who claimed to be this guy. Real name is Dave Woodruff. Here’s his insta https://instagram.com/dwoody14?igshid=110xs0b8a6lvv">https://instagram.com/dwoody14...
@hinge today by someone who claimed to be this guy. Real name is Dave Woodruff. Here’s his insta https://instagram.com/dwoody14?igshid=110xs0b8a6lvv">https://instagram.com/dwoody14...
Went by the name Braun Strow, which just means the scammer really likes wrestling.. name’s derived from Braun Strowman. Wrestler names are super popular. Definitely encountered that before.
He said, that name was because he was of Irish-German descent 
https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="😂" title="Gesicht mit Freudentränen" aria-label="Emoji: Gesicht mit Freudentränen"> as if that was an explanation. Anyway. Here’s this very typica cat fisher story that should make any woman on dating apps skeptical. It’s always this story in different variations.
An American soldier based wherever you are but not really close. It’s a 1-2 hour drive/flight away. Nothing insurmountable if you were into each other.
But .. dang. He’s been sent on a peacekeeping by mission to Afghanistan or a business trip or whatever. Won’t be back at his base for a few weeks. ... pity https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🙄" title="Gesicht mit rollenden Augen" aria-label="Emoji: Gesicht mit rollenden Augen"> but wants a serious relationship and wants to get to know you in the meantime.
So you start chatting. He’s got dogs (yay). You start to relate. He suggests a switch to WhatsApp (less controlled). He’ll have a nice pic on his WhatsApp profile. Says all the right things. No dick picks. A really friendly guy.
You ask details: so he’s using the app so far away, then why does his location on the app doesn’t match? .. must be a glitch, he says.
You should’ve started reverse image searching before moving on to WhatsApp. Just screenshot his pics and drag into google image search. Try it in combination with the search term “veteran” and that’s it. Bingo. You’ll definitely find something.
In my case someone had already made the effort on a scammer registry. And from there you’re off into the rabbit hole. Make sure your take a lot of screenshots and report on the dating app and also on WhatsApp. No need to send him anything. Let him be oblivious about his mistakes.
What I thought was interesting was that the real Dave Woodruff was aware of all the scammers using his pics and name out there. Even posted them on FB asking friends to report the fake accounts. I mean, look. There are so many! He can’t keep up.
Just for fun. Here are more.
In case you weren’t convinced of this profile’s popularity. How does this happen? How does one profile get so much traction? Is it one person creating all these profiles. Or several? Any journo willing to look into this, lmk.
And yes. There’s huge stigma with regards to getting catfishes. Like the fear that people might think you’re stupid for falling for it. But if we don’t talk about it, more people are going to fall for it and get hurt, be it financially and/or emotionally.
Anyone out there have good catfish stories out there? Let me hear them.
Scammers seem genuinely unhappy when found out. I wonder why. Just got this.
