That Time I was on Tinder

A couple of days ago, I got the strangest voicemail… The guy even started it with a little giggle behind his voice saying, “this is kind of an odd phone call for you, but I met somebody on Tinder last night here in Charleston, South Carolina who I think may be using your profile and some of your pictures and information, and after doing a little research, I just thought you should know because they’re clearly not you.”

Um WHAT?!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for people meeting on dating sites, in fact many of my clients have met that way, but hey now, I’m happily married and obviously this isn’t me.

I proceeded to receive multiple phone calls and emails from these men, THANKFULLY just telling me that someone has been impersonating me and want me to know. All these thoughts ran through my head:

• What is my husband Cody going to think?…
• I wonder which picture they used of me…
• Does the person even look like me? Maybe I have a doppelganger out there… haha
• Is this a Catfish story in the making??

So, all kidding aside, I immediately googled it to see who else this has happened to and how to fix my predicament and I came across this webpage entitled, “Someone Used My Photo To Create A Fake Tinder Account.” It was pretty discouraging to read because it sounded like the free dating website, Tinder, doesn’t really care and makes you take up the issue with Facebook since their account is linked through that.

I proceeded to return phone calls and emails to these kind men who notified me of the problem and found out the person’s name so I could look them up on Facebook… and here I am. Santos? Weird. Even some of my best friends made it on her cover photo! Thankfully these guys were smart enough to click on to my business name and find out that I am actually based in Arizona, which then raised those red flags.

In the end, I reported the profile to Facebook to have it removed and also emailed the above screen shot to Tinder and thank goodness they removed their profile!

While this scenario turned out okay for me, it makes me sad to know that someone was using my likeness to trick others. I poke fun at how it turned out for me because my situation was harmless, but the fact is, that online identity theft isn’t something to be taken lightly. This crazy little situation totally made me think about how easy this was to solve because I am transparent about who I am. Wouldn’t all of life be much easier if we stopped pretending to be someone else and just be ourselves? Real, honest, and connected with others?

Signed,

Tina (NOT Santos! haha!)