Internet Safety

Protecting Yourself from fake internet profiles and online identity theft

By Edward A. Malone

December 12, 2002

Just as the stigma associated with filing for personal bankruptcy has faded away over the past twenty years, so has the stigma faded away concerning classified dating and personal profile services. Twenty years ago, the average American might be ashamed to tell their family and friends that they filed for bankruptcy, but today the stigma of has faded away, as a record number of people have filed for personal bankruptcy in the last two years. In fact, many bankruptcy filers are finding themselves obtaining credit within weeks of going bankrupt.

The same is true with classified dating and personal profile services . . .

Twenty years ago, one might be considered a loser for placing a personal dating profile and ad in a newspaper or magazine. However, in our fast-paced society with its information super-highway, internet dating and personal profile usage has gone mainstream. A recent survey by Jupiter Research shows that over 34 million Americans have at least visited an internet dating page. In fact, the internet service, Match.com sponsored the Wimbledon tennis tournament on television this year.

With the exponential growth of any industry comes fraud and theft. Those who communicate online have to be careful that they are not chatting with someone who has set up a fake profile using pictures stolen from someone else. The problem is so bad on BlackPlanet.com that individual members of Black Planet have set up directories such as Hall_of_Fakes and BP_THIEVES1, warning members about fake profiles.

The first way of becoming a victim of online identity fraud is being lured into talking to a person who is not using his or her real pictures. The second way of becoming a victim of online identity fraud is to have your pictures stolen by another person with that person claiming to be you or look like you.

Unfortunately it is very easy to set up such a fake profiles. All one needs is a host website such as AOL, Black Planet, Migente, or DaFlaava.net and saved images of attractive men or women. For example, a 22-year old young lady in Florida with a Black Planet page called, AznCutie99 discovered that her pictures had been stolen and appropriated by an imposter calling herself Ohh-She-So-Fine. Very often, these internet thieves steal the pictures of print models and other celebrities. There are several pages on Black Planet purporting to be that of Hip-Hop singer Ashanti and Beyonce Knowles of Destiny Child.

So the burning question is how can one be protected from having their pictures taken by another or from being deceived by someone with a fake profile? Although there are no full-proof measures short of staying off the internet altogether, there are a few helpful tips to follow to defend oneself against internet profile fraud.

The key to protecting yourself from being lured into chatting with a fake is to think with your proper head. Online community members, especially men, should be very suspicious if a person writes them first and hits on to them. Men can often lose their heads if they see a picture of a honey over the internet and this honey is showing interest in him. However, this sudden come-on from this beautiful woman who looks like a model could be a red flag that something is wrong. Attractive women, especially models probably join online communities more for the networking rather than the dating. They already receive enough attention from men.

Internet browsers should carefully read the entire profile of a person before writing or responding to that person. A person setting up a fake profile might make a mistake such as including an unusual age, hometown, etc. A careful review of the profile might reveal things that simply do not add up.

Another cause of suspicion is an online community profile containing professional-looking pictures. If a page contains professional pictures, then the images were probably taken from an online modeling website or scanned from a magazine. If the person on the profile were actually a model, then he or she would have no problem mentioning that they were featured on a certain website. They might even have an official website which they could reference.

Profile browsers can also learn a lot by asking personal and detailed questions to their fellow online members. If the person claims to be a model, then it would be smart to ask that person how the business is going, how they got started, etc. If a person with an online profile is reluctant to write you in a comprehensive detailed way, about his or her personal or professional life, then perhaps they are not really the person they claim to be. It is easy to steal the photo of a person, but it is harder to actually act out the character of that person.

Before meeting someone from the internet in person, some helpful middle steps might be telephone conversations or live web cameras. Telephone conversations might be a good way of gauging the actual character and personality of a person. Live web cameras are a means of verifying what a person actually looks like. Such cameras are very inexpensive.

Protecting yourself against the second form of fraud is a lot more difficult, but the first step is to protect your images from being right-clicked and saved. If you are a model featured on websites, then you should ask the webmaster to protect your images from right-clicking. If you have set up a profile page on an online community, then you should include the following code in brackets which will protect your images from right-clicking:

body oncontextmenu="return false"

Although this system does not absolutely protect your images, it might serve to slow-down an online thief and make them move on to another victim.

Online community members who wish to maintain their identify can also take pictures holding a sign with their usernames on it. For example, a member of DaFlaava.net with the username Realnezz took a picture of herself with a sign that says Realnezz This picture makes it difficult for a pirate to appropriate the picture and claim that the profile page Realnezz is a fake page. A DaFlaava member named Letmeride10 exposed a fake name Jassosexxxy by taking a picture with a sign that says, Jassosexxy is a fake.

Another means of protection is to report the fake profile page to the online community host. Because the host has no means of identifying the real you, it might be a good idea to send a copy of your driver license, passport or other ID to the host. Alternatively, you could send a notarized letter to the host. Because a notary always identifies the person signing the document, a notarized letter would serve as proof of your identity.

Models who have official websites should indicate what online communities they are on and what their usernames are. That way, a person visiting the site of a model will not be fooled by a fake profile with stolen pictures.

While all of the above suggestions may be helpful, one must realize that there is are no 100% methods of protection. We all must be careful, but a modicum of risk is inherent in life. So we should joyfully yet carefully use this gift that is given to us called the information superhighway.