r/catfish

So I found out where my catfish is from, but I can’t find out where his unit or where he’s based because he’s in the army. Can somebody help me? Can’t they get in trouble for like lying about their name?
I know he went into the army right after graduation so that would’ve been 2015 in Florida

I contacted one of his friends and they said that they knew my catfish and then I sent them the screenshots of my situation. He immediately blocked me and then I contacted one of my catfishes friend a different friend and they said that they went to wrestling school with him about 10 years ago and that’s the last time he seen him. I just don’t know what they’re trying to have. I don’t know what my catfish friend is trying to hide from me. I don’t know if he told my catfish that I reached out about him. mind you when I reached out to Dakota. He told me that he knew him which is my catfish and then why do I get blocked? Isn’t that weird?

I don't know if I'm getting very lucky or if I am the dumbest person on the planet.

I met a guy on Discord, under some questionable circumstances. Basically we agreed to a relationship of me sending him pictures of me and him buying me things. I'm young and broke, he's a bit older than me and seems to be doing well for himself financially. It worked for a bit, until I started actually liking him and he seems to feel the same way too. I didn't really want him to spend a bunch of money on me anymore, but we kept doing the picture thing.

Here's the more concerning parts though. No profile picture, no posts, under a 100 followers. Doesn't send pictures of himself much. Some pictures sure. Muscles, cool car, cool bike, handsome face. One time I suggested that he would send me sexy photos too, but he said "He'll see what he can do." He never sent any.

He claims to be a pilot, and talks about/seems to know a lot about planes. But for the time that I have known him, he has only once mentioned being at work. I read catfishes claiming they're Marines, and that's why you cant find their information online. No idea if pilots are the same. I've talked to him about my worries, but he has reassured me that my worries will be gone after we meet in real life. We live in different countries, and I could not be more nervous to know if he is real.

The usual catfish asks for money, lovebombs and such. But he's not like that. He's nice, and talks to me like a normal person. He's fine if I don't feel like sending him pics. He doesn't pressure me. We've had slight arguments, I have no idea what a catfish would benefit from those. There's nothing wrong with his character. His pictures are just odd, and he's weirdly secretive... about his genitals?

His regular pictures look normal, no AI or anything like that. Reverse search did not recognise any of his pictures, other than one where he looks different from the other pictures.... Gemini said it's a picture of a Finnish gym influencer, but I scrolled through said influencers page and he has no other pictures with the same background, and also the faces/hairlines are not even the same. Google AI has once again proven to be no help, so if anyone could help me out with some better reverse-image-search programs, it would calm my nerves a lot.

Should I go through with meeting him and seeing if he's real for myself?

On one hand it’s something I still think about daily and something I hold deep regret for. 100 percent the one thing in my life I wish I could go back to change if I could it would 100 percent be that.

On the other hand I don’t want to interrupt her life at all or make her feel threatened in the slightest, as I realize what someone might feel if a stranger messages them etc .

I’ve always wanted to apologize for the worst thing I ever done in my life. It’s been 15 years or so. I was too much of a coward to do it then but I would if I could today. I was too wrapped up in it. It still keeps me up some nights thinking about it.

I still have her info and could reach out for the purpose of saying I’m sorry but I’m not sure if it’s the right move.

She probably saved my life back then. I feel like I owe her a thank you, explanation and apology.

Shes got her own family now and looks happy in pictures: I couldn’t be more happy for that. I just wish I came clean when it was all falling apart. I’m sure she knows, of course she does but it’s always unsettling to think about. I don’t want her to think I was some lold man creeping or something. Just a dumb kid who was extremely unhappy and a ton of other bad excuses.

There was this guy I really liked but he didn't like me I saw him at school for the very first time and since then he was all I think of he was a new student then I didn't know much about him, now it has been more than 2 years I still think about him so I created a fake account and sent him req he accepted it seeing sm mutuals as much as ik he was v introvert guy he has never been in rltnship nor in love he thought the fake id was real and I texted him from my fake account we started talking regularly not even for once that guy asked me to send my photos nor my no or personal info we used to text 24/7 and he used to tell me everything idk when we got so attached I even told him I love him he told me the same so we decided that we will meet but someone unknown chipped him that the fake id is me so he asked me and I confessed it after a lot of time but now we are not in touch he blocked me from everywhere now it has been a year, I so want to talking to him but ig it's not possible so what should I do.

so her account was made in july 2026, all her pics are located in korea but the about me section says her account is based in the uk. i reversed image searched one of her pics and came across a tiktok account of a different 100% korean girl who only speaks korean and lives in korea. this girl doesnt rly post and jsut goes live sometimes, and her ig isn’t linked. i sent her a dm request but igs she didnt see it. what do i do? i’ve been catfished as before so i rly despise these kinds of ppl, but i cant rly do anything if the real girl isn’t responding

Im trying to look for someone I lost contact with about a year ago. And im not very techy. I do have a picture of them and there first name but not last night. I am struggling lol so if anyone knows or can do it for me, the help would be appreciated!

Around February I started talking to this guy from Instagram. He messaged me and always complimented my photos so I decided to give him a chance.

He only had one picture on his profile which had his face in it but it cut off half his body. He told me that he was super into fitness and health, so I assumed that was true.

Anyways, when we met irl for the first time he was in his car so I did not see his body. It was also winter so we were wearing coats. When we got out the car he seemed to be a normal weight beneath his clothing.

Sometimes he would send me shirtless pictures and I know now that they were definitely enhanced/AI photos because he had abs

When we were intimate for the first time he was very fat (at least 50-60 pounds overweight) with a hanging belly and a lot of loose skin. He told me that he had lost around 150 pounds. His breasts were as big as mine and I was not attracted to him at all. He also had love handles and his thighs touched almost down to the knee. I also noticed discoloration of his skin and I googled it and it says its a common symptom of obesity

While we were being intimate I kind of froze up and got scared because I was realizing that he was editing his photos and lied about being a healthy and fit guy just so he could sleep with me.

I guess he was ok with showing me the real him after we had sex because he then started to actually facetime me and call me and would be shirtless. He would pig out and eat food that he told me he didnt eat. For example I told him I don’t drink soda and he told me he didn’t either, but once we had sex he was punching Dr.Pepper on calls. He also started making jokes about “fattening me up”

Anyways the sex was terrible and I felt like I had been sexually assaulted. I dumped him a week ago and just said it was due to incompatibility. He still has a pair of my sneakers that I forgot in his car and I do need those back so I will have to message him

I posted a reddit post asking people about my looks, an account sent me a private message telling me id look good clean shaven i replied and we talked abit and i asked her to say hi in a vid then say her name to conform that shes not a catfish, she sent a vid of her saying hi then she said “im not gonna say your name” idk if she misunderstood me or what then we talked more but then she started with some sexual jokes i played along she said my butt might be bigger than hers i laughed and i said we should compare as a joke, i genuinely was joking I didnt ask for her to show me but she sent an ass vid then i asked her to throw a peace sign on vid to prove thst shes not a catfish she didnt throw the peace sign instead she then sent another ass vid and a two second voice message saying she wont send any more confirmation then we talked for a day and she kept insisting on me sending her nudes and shaving my facial hair so at end i sent her nudes she sent two new nudes of her then i asked for something and she said she’d show me if i sent something else first so i did she commented on it then said “1 second” then ghosted me
Ive been ghosted for more than 24 hours now
Her Reddit profile is from 2024 i think im not sure because im blocked now and her discord account is from 2023
Im scared that it was a catfish and about whst thryll do with my nudes im terrified please help me idk if the accounts are real or even if the vids that i got sent are from the person that i was talking to
Im blocked on reddit but not on discord
(The first thirty mins of the convo were on reddit then she asked to switch to discord)

I am currently a 22 year old male, and this all started in September of 2025 (I was 21 by this time) I started exploring dating apps to find a partner. Which, I never got lucky and I think dating apps are a scam. Then I explored back-end dating apps and found this app called Tantan, and matched with someone who was 29 years old. They lead me to Telegram (WHICH TELEGRAM WAS A HUGE RED FLAG) but I am going to keep the catfish part short, by the end. I was scammed out of about $600 USD (I also have some screen shots of messages from the scammer de*th threatening my family, luckily I never gave them any details about my family) but a really messed up part about this was, the scammer had used A.I to merge the Onlyfans creators face on to photos of people in the hospital. And made me believe that it was real.

But, here's the next part. I was able to track down the person who the scammer was impersonating. It was actually quite difficult finding them. It took me a month as their instagram account was very well hidden with only 2,000 followers. I had to use a website to reverse search where the images had come from, and even then that didn't work. Then I used a face scanning website to find where the scammers images came from. And found the Onlyfan creators account via their instagram account.

She was a small Onlyfans creator, but verified with 737 images, 114 videos & 262.3K likes. The first strange thing was, the scammers username handle and the Onlyfans creator username. Was eerily similar, with the difference being the last names were of 2 different flowers. The Scammers handle was A-Rose, and the Onlyfans creator was, A-Violet (I didn't want to give out the first names due to deformation) And thought the scammer must of based their username off her Onlyfans account. But, I made an account to only subscribe to her. Then I started talking to her by letting her know, that there was a scammer using her leaked content to scam people out of money. I had also sent a picture of my face on my dating profile, and she said that I looked cute. (I don't like to stroke my own ego, but. I am not a bad looking guy, just never got the chance to explore & find a partner, hence why I'm still single) even though I told her that she could be completely honest with me, and I wouldn't mind. But she insisted that I was cute.

But, a really sad part about this story was. I had so much in common with her that it was creepy

(Well, now I'm not entirely sure if anything she said was true, due to something later on in the story)
We found out that we had similar heritage and both of our mom's & dad's were from a similar background. Except, we lived on each opposite ends of the world. Which she was from the UnitedS, and I was from AUS. (Sorry had to shorten the names due to the rules) we started talking and discovering what we liked, & a cute thing was we both liked Kirby, and eventually. She gave me a nick name, based off her favorite food, blueberry muffins. And then I would start to call her my beautiful baker. And, so we kept talking for about 2 months. Until, the arguments started. Onlyfans creators usually have a boundary that stops creepy people from trying to meet up IRL, which is understandable, but. The way this creator did it was odd. She knew I was not the type of person to hurt her, as I made it a promise that I would never verbally abuse her even when we were intensely arguing with each other.

Although, I wanted to either voice chat with her or video chat with her because I was still scared due to the catfish. But, she had kept telling me "Please respect my boundaries" and that she had "past trauma" (The trauma thing was a lie) and so, I tried my best to respect her boundaries, and almost at the end of the first big argument, she told me "Does this have to end?" and then I said "I don't want to, but you don't really give me a choice" with her finishing "Well, as long as you respect my boundary. We can keep going" I want to mention through out this entire story, I had kept telling the Onlyfans creator. That she can be completely honest with me, and say that she saw me as nothing but a fan. But she kept insisting I was "special" And reassured me by calling me "Her muffin" Oh, and I want you to keep track of the specific dates in time, these events occurred. I started talking to the onlyfans creator on the 4th of November 2025 & stopped talking to the scammer at the 3rd of November. Which, 1 month later was Christmas. She had a special event where she had an advent calendar and for each day of the month, she would give out special locked content. And I had paid $150 because I wanted to support her. But, she ended up forgetting some days and giving me reposts of photos & videos she had already sent to me, with the hyper link clearly duplicated (This is an important part for later in the story)

I'll fast forward a couple of months to April 2026. But, I want to mention this, as it means a lot to me. I was a heavy smoker, and I use to smoke vapes & weed. This was during the same time I was talking to her, but. When I told her about it, and she helped motivate me to quit, after 5 years of smoking every single day. This was a big moment in my life because my parents have been heavy smokers for as long as I can remember, so for more than 20 years they've never been able to quit. And, I was able to quit cold turkey because she kept me calm, and focus on my goal to start saving up more money in order to keep supporting her. She meant this much to me. To be honest, I never told her about how, after I was scammed. I was thinking of ending it. I haven't been diagnosed with severe depression because I've never been to a therapist before. But, I wouldn't be surprised if I did, as I am usually pessimistic & the opposite of a narcissist.

I also need to describe myself a bit for a better understanding of the story. I use to be a youtuber, and I once had a youtube channel with 15k subscribers & I was monetized, getting paid about $200 USD per month. But, there was a falling out with the channel and I had to quit due to some mental health problems. And I started teaching myself blender, at this time I currently have about 3 years experience. I mentioned this because I would try give advice to the Onlyfans creator about her Instagram reels as they were badly preforming due to the way she would structure her videos. She use to do them as like tiktok style videos with her, and a text box that would say something stupid like "Ofc you haven't been sleeping well. You haven't been sleeping with me" but she tried experimenting with her latest Instagram videos that would pull in about like 200 viewers because it was just a random 5 second clip with her jump scaring you, and shaking her big knockers with bass boosted music (no wonder why it was failing, people would scroll off within the first second) and I told her that she needs to hook people's attention by the first second. And that I suggested she goes back to her old style, which was actually starting to work for her funnily enough.

To also explain a bit more about this Onlyfans model and her strange career so far. Was something that really made me feel sympathy for her, and why I had a strong connection to her. I practically knew more about her than anyone else ever has. Because It took a lot of digging to find her profile when I was catfished. And ended up finding her old information, leaked s*x tapes and that she use to go by a different username. And then I assume what happened was she broke up with her ex-boyfriend and started going under the name A-Violet (Again, censoring out the name to avoid harassment, although to be honest. I was tempted to reveal her username because of how badly she hurt me. But, she still was a big inspiration in my life. Although you'll find out why I was tempted by the end of this story) I also never called her stupid, although. She asked me once "Do you think I should take out a loan for a professional camera crew?" This was to record her PPV's, And obviously, I said "No, that's a terrible idea. Literally people prefer if it's less professional and more authentic, just use your phone"

But moving onwards, she had once joked about saying "you could be my manager" and of course, I said "sure I would love to" She wasn't expecting it, and then she said to me "I don't think you should eat where you shit" I was literally dumbfounded by this. As someone who has experience in growing an online audience, graphic design knowledge & tools. I was literally her perfect solution to helping her OF page, on top of that I was more than willing to do it for free. But, to counteract what she had said. I said "It's better to have someone that cares about you, backing you" And she still declined my help. Now, I am going to talk about her lying. As I said earlier, she told me that she wasn't ever comfortable doing a video call with me, and that she had trauma. Which, I would had respected if it wasn't for the fact that. She had one day told me "I am going to try live stream" and I was like. HUHHH??? keep in mind, I have literally been nothing but respectful to her, I still have never verbally abused her at this stage. So, I didn't get why she'd be comfortable livestreaming to her fans, but not comfortable doing a video call with me. So, then I decided to take my time & effort to help her create a poster for her live stream, and said she was more than welcome to use it. Of course, she was having camera problems! and never ended up doing a live stream.

I want you to keep in mind, I am still keeping this short. That's how long the story is.

A short while after her camera broke. She stopped responding and set her activity as offline. At the time, I thought something terrible had happened to her. And I waited for her to come back, constantly worrying about her. When she did come back 2 weeks later, she said that she had a family emergency and made a post about it. Even when she was gone, I still worried about her every day and waited. Checking her page every day, and sending her messages every day.

Eventually, she had asked me "Do you want to do a 1 on 1 session" And of course, I said yes & paid, although her prices are expensive. It was $300 USD for a 5 minute session. She told me she was eventually going to do it (P.S she never did it, and still owes me) However, when I had requested custom videos, she did do them. So she wasn't scamming people out of money at least. But it still shows that she was lying about her camera. Another thing she had lied about as I pointed out earlier as the advent calendar videos & photos. She had sent me a PPV one day with some of the missing days out of her advent calendar event.

Ill cut to the point where we she blocked me. It was the 22nd of July, and we had our last big argument. And she told me for the final time that "This is not a committed / real relationship" Eight months of talking & sharing real life experiences with each other. And every time I asked her to always be honest with me, as that was my boundary. Even though she still broke my boundary so many times, and I kept forgiving her. And yet, she kept telling me almost yelling "Respect my boundaries" I still. Never. Verbally abused her. And then I told her about my honest feelings about how her boundary. Then she blocked me on the 23rd of July. At this stage, this was the first time I saw the "Unable to chat" box & whenever I tried to find her Onlyfans page, It would say "This link is broken" Even though I had checked on my PC, Phone, Laptop, I think when a creator blocks you. Onlyfans then IP bans you from that creators page. But, I had thought she got suspended because of me. So, I waited 2 weeks, while I was waiting I had written an apology message to her. Then I started thinking "She would've been unsuspended by now" And I had searched it up using a special web browser, and found the page was completely fine.

(I don't want to give out too much detail about how to get around the banning system of Onlyfans in-case of people doing it with ill intentions)

But I had made an account and subscribed to her again. She greeted me, and I had let her know immediately that it was me and that I wanted to apologize to her. She acknowledged me, and let me apologize to her one final time. And after I had sent it then gone to the gym. She had blocked me again. I still felt absolute heart ache after the amount of dedication I had towards her. I had wanted to get one of her tattoo's imprinted on me to serve as a memory of her. (She has tattoo's)
It was a cool tattoo of a coffin. But, I had wanted to wait until the end of August 2026 to get it. And, honestly. I couldn't help but try talk to her once again. So, I signed up with a new account and resubscribed to her under a new username. And started talking to her again on the 8th of August 2026. And I had sent a $100 tip because, I really still cared about her.

But, it was kind of odd. She had said to me "The way I talk is attractive" and that "she thought I was interesting" I had never sent her any photos of me this time and told her that I was not going to buy any of her PPV's and only wanted to talk to her & support her. And... for some reason she started completely telling a different story about where she was from. And that now, our heritage weren't even nearly the same. Hence earlier I said I'm uncertain where the lies started and where they ended. But, I kept telling her "You're bound to eventually throw me under the bus cause you are cold hearted and consider this as a parasocial relationship" with her saying "I can be sweet & caring once I warm up to you"

It's the 11th of August, and I fractured my left foot!!! I was out jogging at night and had to go to the hospital the next day. Although, the onlyfans model seemed very sympethetic and telling me to take care of myself. Now, this is the last part of the story. Today, as I am typing this, It's the 12th of August 2026 (Now the 13th) I told her that it was me again, because I didn't want to lie or make her think I was trying to trick her by pretending I'm someone else. And I sent her a picture of me in crutches asking her to please let me talk to her again. And guess what? SHE BLOCKED ME, AGAIN!

So, thus concludes my sad tale. I never got any closure from her. And to why I am posting this on here. I have not told a single soul about anything that has happened to me. I have no friends, and I was too embarrassed to tell my family. But, thank you for reading my story. It feels nice to know someone might be reading this.

Again, thank you. Feel free to either insult me, or share your piece.

Welp, luckily I caught it only 2 weeks in. Was talking to this girl on IG for like 2 weeks, everything seemed real. I suddenly started to notice she was getting a lot of bot people commenting on her pics and they weren’t real people. I then stumbled upon an account of someone that looked like her supposed “bf” which I’d seen on her account. The account I found was the real friend, and then I found the real person I thought I was talking to. Honestly, insane how detailed some of these fake impersonating IG accounts can be. She was posting stories as well of the same girl.

I know this can be controversial, but I did reach out to the real girl and let her know what’s up. She has known about the account for years and tried many times to get it taken down. Shame on instagram for not taking any of these matters seriously

Had to post this just to let it out honestly. I’m not a guy who dates much or anything like that, and usually am very vigilant to this type of shit. Moment I realized it was fake was like a dagger to the heart

How do you tell someone they’re being catfished when they’re emotionally invested?

Someone very close to me has been involved in an online relationship for a couple of months and is extremely emotionally invested in this person.
I’ve had serious doubts about the identity for a while, but now I have much stronger evidence. I started reverse-image searching photos from the person’s social media using Google Lens, and multiple pictures are showing up elsewhere online and appear to belong to other people. One of the images produced a huge number of results.

There have also been a lot of other red flags: major wealth claims, serious medical stories, promises about money and the future, and very little verifiable real-time interaction. Despite all of that, the person I care about genuinely believes this relationship is real and has started making major life decisions based on it.
My concern isn’t really proving to myself that something is wrong anymore. It’s figuring out how to tell someone who is deeply invested without humiliating them or causing them to immediately become defensive and shut me out.
For people who have been catfished, or who have helped someone realize they were being catfished: What finally got through to you/them?

Would you present the reverse-image-search evidence all at once, or start with one undeniable example and let them investigate it themselves?
I’m especially interested in hearing from people who initially defended the person they were talking to even after someone raised concerns.

Hey what do I do this girl has been posting my nudes and saying it’s her she got them from a server I was
Posting them in what do i do…

She made a post where she asked for help for his friend, who had suicide issues. I helped (M24), we talked for 2 days about this and then she started asking personal questions to be my friend, because we really had many many things in common. She told me that she is 22. We started talking every day, all day. About our stories, our exes, the things that we like to do, and so many other things. We started developing feelings for each other, but i wanted to wait because i just ended a 5 years relationship so, i was still broken. But we kept talking, we were basically a couple, even if we weren't officials.

But she had problems with depression. So i asked for help online and i decided to look for all the posts and comments she ever made, even the hidden ones (yes, you can see everything even if it's private), because i wanted to see if she made a post about her mental health, i just wanted to help her. There i found post where she wrote that she was 16, not 22...so i freaked out. Yesterday we fought for all day, basically at the end she convinced me that she's actually 19 (that is very young for my age, but at least she is not a minor). She told me that she would prove that to me. This morning i decided to do something that i already did, but with more search engines. Basically I search if her images were authentic. The first time nothing popped out so, i thought that it was really her. Today i found out that all her photos are on Pinterest...and my dumbass still asked her the reasons why she lied to me so much if she didn't even ask for money or anything else. I got played so hard. I really liked her a lot. She shared with me all her music, her passions, i really can't believe that she doesn't exist, but surely she is not the girl that I thought. I feel once again betrayed by my life, but this time it's on me.

The thing that hurts the most is that I will never know the truth. She texted me love messages during the night to let me find them in the morning and start my day with a smile. She wrote a poem for me. We had a distant date where we went to the cinema to watch a movie together even if we were in different countries. She helped me when I was the one with suicidal problems. She talked so much about the problems with her family, she had a story so specific. It was a lie? Everything was a lie? I can't believe it. It's more possible that some parts of her life were a lie, like her age, her home, some "attempt" she did seemed fake honestly, all her pics were fake (but i was into her personality way before she started sending me pics). But all the rest that we shared...I can't really believe that even that was a lie. Now I'm missing someone who didn't even exist. I hate my life. (I'm not a pedo i swear)

I’m 33F now.

Back when I was 18 years old, my mom had this addiction with chatting with foreign men online. She would use photos of our young house helpers and she would convince them to video chat with these men so they can get foreign husbands with a justification of marrying themselves out of poverty. My mom is the one chatting because she can speak fluent english (the helpers know little english). Foreign men would often appear at our house being accommodated by my mother as the nervous house helpers sit by and try to speak a little english. (I really don’t know why these men don’t figure out that they are being catfished). Most of the time it’s my mom who chats them and not the helpers. My dad is oblivious to this. All he knows is it is for the helpers.

I was a teenager and had my own problems at school so I ignored them most of the time.

Until one day…

One weekend I was in my bedroom (2nd flr) doomscrolling when I heard a knock on the door. I opened it and saw a foreign man and my mom standing beside him with the most cheshire cat grin (I can never forget that grin).

It appears my mom stole photos from my social media (we’re mutuals) and posted them to a dating site and had been chatting with this foreigner for over a year. It gotten to the point that this foreign man flew over seas alone just to meet me. God knows I never seen or spoke to this man in my entire life.

It was mom.

Mom knew I had a boyfriend (same age) that time. She personally met him. How could she do this?

Inside my mind I panicked. I thought, if this foreign man finds out what mom did, he might hurt her then and there. So I lamely tried to went along with it with panic in my eyes. The man caught on. He figured out that we never spoke. But since he already flew there, he still wanted to meet me and invited me to a far away island in my country for a vacation. My mom eyes sparkled.

I was mortified. How could she be excited to have this stranger go with her daughter to a far away destination when growing up, she won’t even let me study in far away universities.

I felt pimped by my mother.

In the end, the man gave up on me and married a cousin. Mom arranged it too.

I confronted her a year later for using my photos online. She slapped me on the face hard and called me selfish. “They are just photos!” she shouted back.

Although, I did feel she regrets hitting me. But years later, I still receive hate comments from foreigners I don’t even know. I think my mom still uses my photos.

Long story short: a guy matched with my friend online earlier this year, things got weird, she blocked him. Since then he’s been creating a steady stream of brand-new, zero-follower “anonymous” accounts to leave nasty, personal comments on her posts — timed suspiciously close to whenever she posts something new. He deletes the accounts after a while and starts fresh ones.
We’re not doing anything illegal, just quietly logging patterns: timing of comments (always right after she posts), writing style/tone, word choices — trying to build a case that it’s the same person every time. When I reached out privately to a couple of other people he follows (long story, he apparently has a “type”), he found out and started threatening defamation/legal action against me, while denying everything about the harassment.
Platform reports have gone nowhere — the throwaway accounts just get deleted before anything sticks, and new ones pop up.
What I want to know:
• Has anyone actually succeeded in getting a platform or law enforcement to connect burner/anonymous accounts back to a real person? What worked?
• Any creative “honeypot” or pattern-tracking tricks that worked for you (I’ve seen ideas like giving different contacts slightly different fake info and seeing which version comes back through the harasser — curious if that’s ever worked in practice)?
• If you went the legal route, what evidence actually held up, and what was a waste of time?
Not looking for “just block and ignore” — we’ve done that, new accounts keep appearing. Looking for what actually worked for people who’ve been through this long-term. Thanks in advance.

They are harassing a friend , doxxing them online.. does anyone have any programs to help me locate this person

I (31F) recently befriended someone (26M) who worked at the liquor store near my old apartment. We chatted as I checked out and he asked to get together. I made it clear that I’m only interested in friendship and nothing romantic. I told him I’m a lesbian, and he accepted that.
Since we met, he’s been texting several times a day asking to hang out and calls frequently. He wanted to come to my house but I made it clear that as a woman, I need to take precautions meeting a guy for the first time.
He accepted this and even suggested that when we do meet, I share my location and his contact information with my friends/family. I let my guard down.
We met at a bar and had a great time. We have similar interests and got along easily.
My friend from out of town was coming to visit this past weekend, and I intended to introduce them on a night out. I mentioned to my new “friend” that my friend and I were planning to go to a bowling/arcade place, and we all planned to meet up at the bars that night.
I had a family emergency that day, resulting in a family member in the ER, so plans were cancelled.
This guy appeared to be sympathetic over text but continues to text and call constantly.
Last night, I received a text from a random number in the Chicago area asking to go to a bowling/arcade place this weekend. I thought that was coincidental considering that’s exactly what I did last weekend, and I had a gut feeling it was my new “friend” texting from a random number, trying to be funny or something.
I responded to the text with a laughing emoji, assuming it was my new friend, and they texted back stating this was “Jenny” looking for a “Lisa.” I responded, noting the coincidence of the bowling/arcade thing.
Since then, I’ve received several texts from this number, and they asked if we could turn this accidental text into a friendship.
My gut tells me it’s this new “friend” either trying to trace my texting habits or something more malicious, such as pretend to be a woman in order to prey upon me being gay.
Am I crazy to think my new “friend” is attempting to catfish me? How do I get to the bottom of this? If it’s not him, and it’s either a random girl or a scam, I don’t want to cut him out of my life. But if it is him… I want nothing to do with him.
Any advice?

I know I shouldn't get my hopes up but I met this girl on discord. I didn't really think to much about knowing what she looked like at first. But after a few days of texting back and forth she just seemed so sweet and kind. I asked her if she would be ok exchanging pictures but she said she didn't feel comfortable giving a stranger a photo of herself. I understood her so I decided to drop it. But we've been talking for around 3 years and I haven't even gotten a voice message either. We both really like each other but she says she's now more afraid to send something because she's afraid I won't like the way she looks.

She said she struggles a lot irl and even back in school she never said a word to anyone because it was that bad. The only thing she feels comfortable sharing are photos of what she does throughout her day without showing her face. I just hope one day I can meet her because I just really like this girl and we bond over so many things.