Nikki V. was a Victim of Catfishing This Week in Billings, Again!

 You might be asking yourself “What the heck is catfishing?”  

Definition: Catfishing: US, informal 

"the process of luring someone into a relationship by means of a fictional online persona." 

You’ve seen the MTV show Catfish?? It gets heated because people are lied to and they realize the person they’ve been chatting with isn’t that person in the photos at all. It can be a scary and frustrating thing to deal with.  

Back in 2017, I kept having “Catfish accounts” made with my photos taken from my old Facebook.

It wasn’t just once or twice, it happened three times within a few months of each other. The weird part was that all my photos were set to private, but somehow someone was still creating these fake personas. The issue with that means it was one of my “Friends” on Facebook...  

I never added strangers on social media channels because that freaked me out even before the catfishing started. This means a person who I knew, had the audacity to create these fake accounts with my photos. Which is so weird, and my question is why? 

Just the other day I got tons of messages from people in Billings who listen to the show on my Nikki V. Instagram page.

People in Billings were getting friend requests from this account that took my photos from my on-air, work account.

This persona created a new IG with my name, and a bunch of random things in the bio, noted with a fake nude account.  See photo above. They took my photos and were promoting "naughty adventures." So gross. It sent my head spinning, and here’s why.  

Admit it- we NEVER read the fine print and user agreements when signing up for social media.

But it’s like we trust this “honor system” of not taking someone’s face and turning it into a scam, or pretending to promote that I have an OnlyFans. It’s truly an invasion of identity.  Look at how many people this cat fisher added in just one day! That's scary stuff. But- the funny part about all these fake catfish accounts is the jobs these personas had.

All the personas with my photos  lived in France, so random. And note the jobs. The perpetrator who created the accounts chose some real bougie, high-paying gigs! Ha. I have to learn to laugh it off, it’s not worth getting all worked up over it. But to the people who create catfish accounts know this: I feel sorry for you. Truly.