Catfish Scams are Never-Ending

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It’s very sad that people become victims of catfished romance scams. Catfishing is a term that means presenting an identity that is other than your true identity. I have written about this in the past; read my article titled, Catfish, Catfish, Catfish to learn the origin of the term. I have written other articles about it too: Have You Been Catfished?, Catfish Chronicles, Catfish Chronicles: Part Two, On Being Cynt Marshall, What’s In A Name?, and several others. A search of catfish on my site will bring them all up. These I listed are the ones I am most proud of and enjoyed researching and writing the most.

Anyhow, I digress. The incidence of victimization we saw in 2022 is staggering, more than $1 billion dollars from approximately 70,00 people, and that’s just within the United States. The one piece of good news is that it’s approximately a 10 percent decrease from 2021. But decrease or not, it’s still higher than it ought to be. A 10 percent decrease from a billion dollars is paltry, looking at the big picture.

The most troubling thing, at least for me, is that romance scams are not new. These scams aren’t even almost new. They have been around for years, even before the Internet. The Internet has made it easier for the scammers to perpetrate their scams, because they are so slick they get victims to dish out money without having ever met face-to-face, oftentimes without even speaking to them via voice calls. Many don’t even converse via video calls, such as with Skype, Zoom, MS Teams, or Poly.

I read about a Mesa, Arizona woman who says she met a man at a conference that ended up scamming her. Maria Tim Baca Rojo’s love interest went on a contract assignment to Russia and began asking for money, and she sent it – more than $200,000. She lost her four-bedroom house and ended having to downsize to a studio apartment. This incident is the old school means of scamming someone. Scammers met their victims from classified ads in newspapers and magazines or from marriage bureaus and dating agencies. More on that later. The internet makes a scammer’s job easier and can perpetrate the scam more quickly using technology.

Looking back to the end of the 18^th century, agencies that referred to as marriage bureaus, matrimonial bureaus, or dating agencies were very popular. Lovelorn men and women went into these agencies, met with a counselor, and expressed the type of person they wanted to meet, with the list of traits and attributes they thought would make the perfect romantic partner, for a nominal fee. One of the earliest noted instances of these bureaus was in 1799 in Europe, in Wales. Mail order bride businesses originated around that same time, in the early 1800s. Men and women thumbed through mail-order agencies to find lovers. Many of the relationships were successful for both parties. People would find the love of their lives and lived happily ever after. But that wasn’t true in all instances. Some of them were victimized and lost lots of money. Once the scammers bilked the victim for as much as they thought they could get, they vanished.

There are several sitcoms that broached this topic. Here are the ones that immediately come to mind:

I. Season 3, Episode 9 (aired in 1962) of The Andy Griffith Show touched on this catfish phenomenon in the episode titled, Floyd the Gay Deceiver (gay meaning not a homosexual man but rather, a lighthearted, carefree, and philandering man). Floyd developed a pen-pal relationship with a woman he thought was a wealthy widow, presenting himself as a wealthy widower himself, until her sudden decision to visit Mayberry caused their house of cards to tumble.

II. There was a similar catfish type of ruse on Leave it to Beaver in the episode Wally’s Glamour Girl (Season 4, Episode 10 that aired in 1960). Wally painted his family as one of great wealth to a girl in another city, someone he thought he would never meet in person. But she and her family came to town to his surprise.

III. Sanford and Son also tackled this topic in the episode titled Matchmaker, Matchmaker. Fred went to a dating agency and fudged details when submitting a profile to get a date for Lamont (Season 4, Episode 2).

IV. Florence also experienced that on an episode of The Jeffersons (Season 6, Episode 3). In the episode titled Louise’s Old Boyfriend, Florence went to meet a man presenting herself as Louise, an old flame of Louise’s who was in town, someone Louise had decided not to go and meet.

V. Season 5, Episode 8 of Good Times dealt with this too. Michael talked to someone named Fun Girl via CB radio in the Breaker, Breaker episode. They had good vibes, but she failed to reveal the fact that she was a paraplegic. Michael was disappointed, not that she had the disability but that she wasn’t honest with him about it.

Each of those TV shows occurred long before this type of ruse was ever labeled as a catfish. They may not have been labeled as such, but that’s what they were. Even in the Bible there is mention of this, in a broader sense. 2 Corinthians 13-14: 13.These people are false apostles. They are deceitful workers who disguise themselves as apostles of Christ. 14.But I am not surprised! Even Satan disguises himself as an angel, as a man of righteousness.

The story of the Trojan Horse is about a ruse used by the Greeks during the Trojan War to enter the City of Troy to win the war. Soldiers hid in a huge, wooden, and very ornate/decorative horse, allowing them to overtake the city of Troy after several failed attempts.

They’re all catfishing, just varying versions of it. Hopefully one day, people will be more aware and become immune to these fungi. I call them fungi, but maybe lecherous pigs might describe what these scammers are more accurately. It’s probably never going to end. The concept is age old. It just gets repackaged and presented differently. To paraphrase William Shakespeare, it’s still a rose, no matter what you call it. It still smells the same.