Fatal Catfish Attraction

[Lovebee]

OK, it has been a weird day. I received a friend request from a woman I've never met nor heard of on Facebook. Her profile is just a few days old, has no pictures, no other friends. Her only "Like" is the page connected to my SO's business, which I run for him. My SO had asked me to check her out, she had messaged through the page asking about training and he wanted to know if it was ok to ask her to call him.

The lack of information on her profile made me a little suspicious, so I messaged her through the page to clarify what her question was and hoping to get some info about her. She sent back a message insinuating that my SO is doing more than just business with female clients. I responded as professionally as I could, and she sent another right back to be more blatant about it, saying that my SO is cheating on me with some hot blonde chick. For a woman I've never met, she knew an awful lot about me.

I trust him 100%, he is always upfront and open with me, and he's as baffled as I am about who this woman is. Our only other information about her came from a girl he had a fling with some years ago who still carries a torch for him (he's remained friends with her out of pity, I think) - she claimed this woman had sent her messages calling her a whore. Evidently his fling is the hot blonde chick she's referring to.

Long story short: none of the messages made any sense. After I ignored messages, she sent emails to the company email address, which forwards to both me and my SO - she sent one to him saying she'd seen him and the way he behaved with this other girl; she sent one to me saying she'd seen him and if I wanted more info I should contact her. I ignored these too. She messaged through Facebook again, addressing my SO and saying she was looking forward to seeing him at an event tonight. I've now blocked her.

The kicker is that she appeared at pretty much the same time as my SO told his old fling, after she'd made some innuendos to him, that nothing was ever going to happen between them, he was moving on with his life, he was with me and he isn't interested in her. Apparently she didn't take the news too well, though he didn't go into details. We both suspect she might have fabricated this new Facebook profile in a bid to stir up trouble and make herself look like the good friend who is standing up for him whilst being told she's a whore. If she's hoping to split us up by making me doubt his fidelity, she's out of luck. I know my man.

This is a delicate situation - I don't want to make things more dramatic than they need to be, but if we're right about this, her behaviour is pretty unhinged and invasive.

And ideas about how we could find out if our theory is correct or not? If we're right, how do we deal with her (make her go away or at least stop being so weird) without provoking her into anything more crazy? If she's made one fake profile, I wonder if she'd make more... If we're wrong and this is some new person sticking her nose in our business and relationship, how do I make her go away and leave us alone??

Whilst it's almost amusing to read her weird messages, it's unsettling to have somebody saying things about me and my relationship when I have no idea who she is. I'm not keen to deal with bunny boilers, real or fake. Any advice or insight greatly appreciated.

[Kitten_mittens]

Hmm. I don't really have much advice. Can you report her on FB as well? I don't think there is any real way to prove who it is. Sounds like your relationship is solid though. That's really good. =] Kudos to you for handling it so well.

[piratemama]

That's why I hate social media. It's easy for folks to hide. If you want to say something, say it to my face.

My motto is "it" only stinks more when stirred. I'd just ignore her and drop it. You've blocked her, so that's good. If she is the ex, then trust your SO to deal with her as needed.

[itsjen516]

wow thats some situation , is there a way you can play along for a bit and let your SO in on it so you 2 can see who it may be. there has to be SOME way to figure it out. maybe tell this cat fish that you want to call them and talk about it more then threw just facebook cuz your confused and rather hear it out. Best of luck this would make me feel sick to my stomach
let us know what happens

[Chris516]

Find her IP address and do a background check on her.

[piratemama]

Find her IP address and do a background check on her.

How do you find an IP address? I've been wondering. I found a site online once when I googled it that shows how to check out an IP address, but I don't know how to find the IP address to start.

[Heavenly_Love12]

I had something kind of similar happen to me! I started getting messages from a page called Day Quotes on FB about a month before I went home. They went to my "others" folder so I didn't see them for a week or so. They were messages saying, "hi" or asking how I was so I just assumed the person had messaged me on accident. When I went home, I received really mean and angry messages from that page! Things like, "I suggest you find a guy in Alaska and f off" and "who were you with the other day? That tall guy, he's a jerk." What was creepy was that I met my SO for lunch when he was working one day and that's when I got those messages.

I told him about them and he figured out that one of the women he worked with, was sending them to me. She had told him about her page, Day Quotes, and he figured it out. My SO is a really nice guy and likes to help others and she ended up having a crush on him and thought if I was out of the picture, she would have a shot or something. I had to block her because she apologized and then her friend, an admin of the same page, sent me messages about how the girl was unstable and such.

Blocking the girl (her real profile) and her page made her leave me alone. She would call my SO at random times during the night and try to get him to hang out with her. There wasn't much he could do because they worked together but he was able to use the "I'm your boss" thing on her. She eventually quit and ignoring her was the only thing that worked. She also ended up leaving the store which helped too.

I would block any known profiles or pages of hers. You can change your settings so no one that you are not friends with can send you a message. If she has no other way to contact you other than Facebook, that should work. People like that have nothing else to do but to try and steal happiness from others. Hopefully she doesn't start bugging your SO too

[itsjen516]

Find her IP address and do a background check on her.

i really want to know how do that. there is some girl on a message board i go on who made a fake account and just talk crap to everyone and i would LOVE to find out who it is so help

[mllebamako]

It seems to me like you guys are probably right. It's probably best to just ignore her and block her facebook profile(s). Finding IP addresses from email is pretty easy. Here's a good guide. You can copy the email's full header into the IP address detection script at the bottom of the page to get an approximate location. It isn't usually exact (like I just tried my mom's email in it and it showed the capital of her state but not her actual city) but at least you can find her state and country.

[Hollandia]

Once you have the IP address from the email, you can use a site like this to look up more details.

https://whatismyipaddress.com/ip-lookup


I used to use them all the time when I was an Admin on another forum. They will tell the city and state and the ISP of the IP address as well. BEWARE! A smart Catfisher might be using a Proxy or VPN so if it is wrong country that does not mean it is not that person, but a less tech savy one might not be aware and you could find out it was them if so.

[Lovebee]

My SO went out to the event last night, where our Catfish purported to be, but he messaged me while he was there to say there was nobody there he didn't recognise. This morning I woke up to three more emails from her - two for me, saying that I must know something is going on and why would I want to be in a relationship with him, and one for him telling him how great he looked at the event last night.

She's also bypassed the blocks on the Facebook page somehow and had got access to the company page back, even though I had (supposedly) banned her permanently. I removed her again, she added herself when I was online and I removed her immediately. I can report her profile to Facebook in a day or so - because I blocked her recently and then unblocked her so I could manage her presence on the page, I can't submit a report until 48 hours later.

Thanks for the tips on finding an IP address. I tried to trace her IP from the emails she's sent, but they just show Google down in California (she's sending from a gmail account). Is there any way to find the IP address of a Facebook profile? I'm not all that tech-savvy, I've no idea if that's possible.

The novelty has really worn off now. I did feel sorry for her at first, but this is absurd.

[Lovebee]

Well, I just got an email from his ex telling me that she's shocked I won't stand up for my boyfriend when the "whore" is fighting like a pitbull, and this apparently shows that she cares about him more than I do and that she's disappointed in me.

I think she actually meant to send it to me from her email address as the "other" woman. Whoops.

[Ahava]

Whoops indeed! LOL
I guess she just revealed herself. :P
It can get tricky trying to pretend to be somebody else...

Was the ex fling at the event then?

[Heavenly_Love12]

Good grief! Well, I'm glad she made the mistake and revealed herself. Sounds like bitter grapes to me! She's just trying to stir up trouble and create drama.

I hope you will be able to put this to an end!

[piratemama]

It seems to me like you guys are probably right. It's probably best to just ignore her and block her facebook profile(s). Finding IP addresses from email is pretty easy. Here's a good guide. You can copy the email's full header into the IP address detection script at the bottom of the page to get an approximate location. It isn't usually exact (like I just tried my mom's email in it and it showed the capital of her state but not her actual city) but at least you can find her state and country.

Thank you for sharing this info. I didn't know this.