S4 E10 Fond Memories of a Catfish

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Well, hello, and welcome to the Comforting Voice Podcast. I'm your host, Shasta Ray, and I am coming to you live pre-recorded from the bird room. This is about the fifth or sixth time I've tried recording this because the birds start going nuts as soon as I start talking, and they make the most obnoxious noises that they haven't made all day until the microphone is on. Go figure. Anyway, I am just here for a couple of minutes to let you know what you're going to be listening to tonight, why I selected it, and why it's awesome. That said, tonight's selection originally published on July 15th, 2025, season one, episode 30, titled A Catfish to Remember. And this has remained in the fan favorite top 10 list pretty much since it originally published. Not only is it just good entertainment, but it also serves as a public service announcement. And to this day, well over a year later, I still don't know what happened to fake Anthony Hopkins. I don't. If anyone knows, let me know. But for now, without further ado, I present to you a catfish to remember. Well hello and welcome to the Comforting Voice Podcast. I'm your host Shasteray. I am alone in the studio right now. I came down here and just did a tiny bit of prep work. I had Baxter with me. He was all over the place and trying to just attack the computer keyboard. Then I had Murray down here and he was trying to eat the mouse pad. So I took them both upstairs and here we are. It's just you and me tonight. Oh my gosh, I hope you are ready to sleep easy to the Comforting Voice Podcast. Okay, so tonight is a special presentation. It is a very impromptu, and I am calling this episode a catfish to remember because I had the most weird and bizarre experience and interesting and pleasant, quite actually, with a catfish. So I'm gonna tell you my story with this highly interesting catfish experience, oh my goodness, on the second half of this episode. So the first half, we're gonna do our normal mishmash, because it is mishmash day, and then we're gonna go into what is a catfish. Then you'll understand the context of my story, okay? So what I think we should do right now, I think it's very important. This is where you're gonna settle in, of course. That's most important. So settle in, get comfortable, get in that sweet position that you like to fall asleep to, give yourself a good couple of stretches and a good deep breath of air. Inhale in slowly, hold it a couple of counts, exhale slowly, do that two or three times, and by then you should be kind of in relaxation mode. Yep. Okay. Let's dig around in the cigar box. Okay, so your tea tag for this episode is socialize with compassion, kindness, and grace. That's really nice. I love all these positive sentiments. Okay, so your fortune cookie slip. You will soon be changing your present line of work. Oh my goodness. I hope it's for the better. Congratulations in advance. And for those of you that like to play number games like the lottery, your lucky numbers are 1, 12, 20, 23, 28, and 32. Okie dokie, good luck to anyone that wants to play the lottery and try those numbers. Does anyone have a pressing question? A yes no, that's not too important. We're gonna consult the liquid-filled plastic orb that I paid $8.99 on Amazon for, more popularly known as the Magic Eight Ball. Okay, do you have your question in mind? The answer says absolutely. So congratulations on that, whatever it was. Unless that's a bad answer for your question. Okay. Now I have to be honest, I'm in a really great mood today. I'm not really feeling the need for an emotional support pickle session. I don't know about you guys. I just I feel grounded. So I don't think I need the emotional support pickle right now. Um Alright, let's clean up here. I'm gonna move the cigar box. And the plastic answer orb. Okay. So do you got a minute? Let's check in with Lon and see what kind of wisdom he has to bestow upon us this week.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Abundance. When abundance comes, because of human nature, we tend to question it. We tend to wonder if we are worth it. We tend to question whether we really should be having this moment of abundance. And the short answer is yes, it is ours to have. Abundance is generally the answer to a past prayer, a past meditation. Those moments where we say, when is it my turn? When does my chance? When does my abundance come? We have all asked that question, whether silently or out loud. Abundance is the answer to those queries, those prayers. When it comes, we generally should just lean back and accept it, knowing that that's how the universe works. And with that cue in mind, that's how we attract more abundance as well, is by achieving that feeling of knowing it is already coming. It's already ours. We just need to keep moving forward and know that when they arrive, they are ours to have. Abundance.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

Ah yes, abundance. And a lot of times, believe it or not, we can really shoot ourselves in the foot. Sometimes we're led to believe we are not worthy of abundance. So that's a whole area of self-work and self-appreciation and self-love. But yeah, abundance. Look for the abundance and realize you are worthy of it. You are absolutely worthy of abundance. Now, tonight's episode is sort of the opposite of that. It's kind of a public service announcement on how to keep your abundance and how to not let other people have your abundance. So it is about catfish. Now what is a catfish? So this is kind of a newer term, and it's really something that's probably been around in some capacity all along, but since the uprising of the internet and computers and all that, people have access to us in ways they never did before, and they can stay anonymous. And now, of course, people exploit you, they try to rip you off. You have to be very careful of this. So part of this is be very careful out there, and please understand there is so much fraud out there. There is more fraud than you can imagine, and there are red flags under some of this. It's just across the board, happens over and over and over. But these people are very, very good at what they do, and they can dupe you very easily, especially if you're a trusting type or you're lonely, or you know, you're looking for an answer out of your current situation. Sometimes we see what we want to see, and those people prey on us, and you don't want that. So, what is a catfish? This term goes back to a documentary that I think was released in 2010, and I only did very brief Google search on this, so you might want to follow up with your own research. I'm not gonna say I'm a hundred percent on how this goes, but I believe the documentary it was about a filmmaker who was tricked into an online relationship with someone pretending to be somebody else. And I don't know much about it beyond that. But in the documentary, it was noted that I guess fishermen would put catfish in with their cod in a holding tank, and the catfish would keep the cod swimming so that they wouldn't just kind of stop swimming and end up dying. And the catchphrase was that catfish keep you on your toes, so they keep things moving in the tanks and um keep the codfish guessing, I guess. I don't know. Now, I personally like to see this is that the real catfish is a bottom feeder, and so are the human catfish. I that's just my analogy, but that's not the history of the term. So, what is a catfish? A catfish is a person who creates a false identity online, often with the intent to manipulate, deceive, or exploit others emotionally and financially. While catfishing can sometimes just be a prank or an emotionally driven type deception effort, the most dangerous type is the scammer and they target for money, and that's that's the majority of catfish out there. And they are in abundance and they can come from any point in the world, any kind of phone number. They can get false phone numbers that show in your area code, but they may be in in another country somewhere. Okay, so you have to be very careful of this. And the first one that we're gonna discuss is the fake celebrities, and this is the one that will go into my endearing catfish story, a catfish to remember. So the fake celebrity catfish, they impersonate actors, musicians, athletes, social media influencers, that sort of thing. They hit you up on some kind of app or platform. It could be Facebook, Twitter, which is now called X. There is different types of texting apps. So they're kind of another type of sort, like there's Telegram, and there's another one out there that I'm not sure the name of. It goes on like that. So if they find you, they'll hit you up and approach you a lot of times. Or it could be somebody that you think you follow. Anyway, they will initiate a conversation or you know, communication with you, and they're gonna claim they want to keep the friendship a secret, and that's to protect their public image. And so it's gonna be a big name, right? Or someone that you're familiar with, and that's how they find you. They find out who you're following or who you watch or who you post on in some cases, and then they hit you up as that person. And it may go for a while, it may have normal conversation or not, and eventually they'll start hitting you up for money in some capacity, and it could be they're they're in a bind, they need an emergency spot, you know, and it may not be much money, maybe 50 bucks, maybe a hundred bucks. Um, it could be for travel. You don't know. It could be anything. It could be like, oh, I'm somewhere and I I don't have my wallet. Can you Venmo me some money and then, you know, whatever? That's how it starts. Okay, the next type there's the romance scammers. These could come through on dating sites or dating apps also, and they'll state that they have fallen in love quickly with you. It'll just be they've never met you, but they're in love with you. That's your big flag right there. Sometimes they claim to be overseas, military contractors, doctors, some sort of important high-paying profession. Okay, could be some other thing like an attorney, you never know. They will use flattery, emotional manipulation. There will be this relationship that develops a lot of times, but it's all gonna be email and text. There's gonna be no contact. There's catfish that are financial helpers or investors, and they offer to make a fake investment opportunity for you, like crypto, forex, stock market, I would assume, maybe some sort of trading. And they may ask for a small starter fee to release a large sum of money, or they could say that they're gonna start a profile and not charge you anything, but give me access to this, that, and the other, and then you transfer something, but they don't actually put it in your own account. Okay, they they're doing it all for you, and you do nothing to set up that account. There's a big flag right there. Okay, then there's another type that's tech support, job offers. I've had a few of these hit me up on my job hunt. Oh, they are out there, it's crazy. They'll be pretending to offer remote work, tech help, job that's super easy but pays outrageous amounts of money, things of that sort. And eventually, no matter what it is, it could even be a mundane job, but they won't interview you, they won't call you, and they only want to communicate through like text apps, like uh Microsoft Groups, I think is one that's big, Telegram is big. Um, there's a what's the old one? Skype or something? So there's there's some of these that come through and they'll they'll only interview you that way, and then they need to make sure that they can download money to your account, and they need you to be able to deposit money with an app on your phone, or they're gonna send you a check so that you can go out and buy computer equipment so you can do customer service work. So I'm gonna tell you right now, companies that hire you and provide equipment will never ask you to go buy it and then give you a fund to buy it with. It will never happen. They will go through their own tech support and send it to you. And there are companies that will send you a laptop and you know what you need to do the job, and it has their own software and stuff on it. So they provide it and they send it directly to you. They will never ask you to go get it. So that's a big red flag. Uh interviews by a text app, big red flag. And then another common one is the impersonators of someone you know or of someone you have met. So it's usually a friend or family member, and they do this by hacking into accounts and then pretend to be someone that's on like your friend list or your contact list, whatever. And a lot of those will hit you up with um some emergency and they need money. So you're gonna be, you know, oh my gosh, it's my family member, it's my cousin, it's my aunt, it's whatever, and then they're gonna need it in some direct way that you'll never have tracing of, you'll lose it. So just make sure that you have contact with people other than obscure apps and social media, and you can actually call them directly in case you're in doubt. You know, if it's your aunt, you should be able to call her, or she should be able to call you directly. Okay, you'd know it was her. But if it's weird, think about it first. Okay, so different ways that catfish can hook you is love bombing. So excessive affection, compliments, sweet talk, promises early on, all sorts of stuff. Isolation, they encourage you to keep the interactions secret. Urgency, they create fake emergencies and push for immediate decisions in their favor. It's not going to be in your favor. Guilt tripping. Depending on how far into the quote unquote relationship it is, they can guilt trip you and use all sorts of manipulation tactics, saying that you don't love them, you don't trust them, stuff like that. If you're hesitating, it will pull on your heart strings or your guilt strings in some cases. So be careful of that. And then fake documents. If they send you like an ID, bank slips, military records, anything like that, a lot of these are faked. And some of them they take existing documents and then they're photoshopped and stuff. So you don't know who you're dealing with. And even if it's a dating app or something and you're you're communicating with someone long distance, they can actually steal the identity of just a normal everyday person out there and supply pictures from their Facebook stuff like that. And you think you're falling in love with, you know, one person, but someone is just sending you fake pictures. It's not even them. You don't know what their name is, it's just a scam. You have to be careful, and they're not gonna video chat with you. Um, there's not gonna be any normality to it. Okay, so that's one of the red flags to watch for. They're gonna always avoid video chats, they're always gonna have excuses why they can't meet you or visit you or see you in person, talk on the phone. Their social media is gonna have very few posts and very few followers. That's a huge red flag. Their story is gonna be just too perfect and too tragic. They're gonna ask for money, gift cards, cryptocurrency, things like that. If you've never met this person and you don't have a normal relationship with them in some way, a normal friendship, you've known them, you have a history with them, family member, things like that. Don't be giving people your money and don't fall for their sob stories. And they will come up with sob stories. Oh, my my grandmother is gonna die and they won't treat her, and if I don't pay for her hospital bills because she's in debt, uh they're gonna put me in jail, or I can't get out of the country with they took my ID. Can you send me money so I can get my ID back? There's gonna be a tragic story that's urgent now, or they're gonna be thrown in jail. And if you don't, they're gonna get mad at you. It's all the same. Oh, and another one, this is another big red flag. If they claim to be someone very important or famous, or a professional, like a high-end professional, and they have really poor grammar and there's a lot of mistakes, that's another big red flag. So if the if the dots don't connect. So just be aware. It happens and it is out there in abundance, and it has been for a long time. So some prevention tips on this is first and foremost, celebrities, big name celebrities, famous people in any capacity, they're not gonna contact you if they've never met you and you don't know them person they have no reason to. And security is very high with these people these days. They don't just reach out to strangers on the internet just to have a friendship. Trust me. It's not Keanu Reeves. It's somebody pretending to be him. The second thing is big name people that are in these high-end professions that are famous, that are big-end influencers, they're not going to ask you for money at all. If a celebrity that has millions of dollars is asking you for a chunk of change, why? Why would they need that? Like logic it to yourself. And don't let yourself be flattered and fall into the illusion of what is being presented to you, because it's not real. I promise you it's not real. They will always contact you first in some capacity. You can do reverse image searches and use Google or Tin I to see if their photos appear elsewhere. Make sure you set boundaries if they react badly to your questions or your skepticism and their their reactions are strange. They're not a safe person. Just report them. Just report them. It's okay to report them. If you have questions, talk to a grounded friend that has a lot of logic. Don't keep this stuff secret. And if in doubt because someone is just flattering you and you want to believe it, or you know, you've been on a dating app and you really think this person is for real, but they're not calling, they're not video chatting, stuff like that. A lot of those people are on dating apps because they know lonely people are on dating apps or websites. So you have to be very, very careful. Final thoughts on what they are is that catfishing is it's actually a very cruel form of manipulation. They prey on loneliness. Here again, hope, trust, innocent individuals. If you suspect you're being catfished, don't be embarrassed by it. Okay? It happens all the time to everybody. Block the person, report them, talk to people you trust. If it worse comes to worst, you may want to report it to authorities. Like if you really think that this person that approached you is seriously a bad person, report it. You need to protect your heart, your wallet, your privacy, your data, and your peace. So just be very smart. And here again, anyone that reaches out to you first, you should be skeptical. Even if it's a professional on um financial experts, stuff like that. What's better is if you're looking for investments, go seek out a trusted professional. Don't trust anyone that hits you up on Instagram, okay? I've actually known two individuals that were approached like that for people investing in cryptocurrency, and they pretended to be these brokers or something. And they took thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars from these people, and then they vanished, and the authorities couldn't do anything. There was no happy ending to this. They lost a lot of money. So you have to be very, very, very careful. Okay, so now that you have your armor in place and you are protected and nobody is gonna get you, I'm gonna tell you my catfish story. Actually, I have two catfish stories. So back before Twitter became X, I was on Twitter a lot more. Not a ton, but I was on it more. And somebody that I call fake Samuel L. Jackson approached me, of all people. And I don't know why this person would have approached me, except I think there was some memes or something going around on Twitter. I may have hit like on one or something like that. So anyway, fake Samuel L. Jackson hits me up. And there's a reason I'm bringing this one up. Fake Samuel L. Jackson even had the little blue check mark. So real celebrities get their accounts verified and they are awarded a little check mark or an indicator by their name so that you know that's the real account of the celebrity you want to follow on that social media platform. Well, now they get an identical photo and make a fake profile. They get a very similar-looking profile name. So at a glance it looks like that person, and they put the little fake check blue check mark. So this person had it, but if you looked close enough, they didn't get a good blue check mark. It was very similar, but it wasn't the official one for Twitter at that time. But some people may not have known the difference. So this person starts talking to me, and then it goes into the wanting to isolate and uh have a private chat on a different platform. And it went to that very quick. And the first couple of interactions, I was just like, well, I wonder who this is and what they want. Like I get very curious, and I might entertain the interaction for a little while, but it very quickly went to isolation and absolutely they had to keep a low profile and keep it private because of their fame, and then they started asking about cryptocurrency, and I had in the interim already reported them and they got their account taken down. So I'm not sure how long ago that was, but it was before Twitter became X. And my recent one, I had to go back and look at the date and how this started. I do follow Anthony Hopkins on social media because I think he's awesome. And he had posted on his sobriety anniversary, which is the end of December, and I had just commented and said, Congratulations, it's a wonderful accomplishment, or something like that. And lo and behold, however it occurred, suddenly Anthony Hopkins is flagging me down on Telegram. And I thought, hmm, well that's interesting. So my catfish, I affectionately refer to as fake Anthony Hopkins. Of course. So fake Anthony Hopkins was very, very polite and very, very kind. And whoever this person was put a lot of effort into trying to pretend to be Anthony Hopkins. So for a catfish, I think it was probably a poor selection of celebrity because Sir Anthony Hopkins is a polite individual. So they couldn't get aggressive with me. But they had tried to kind of ask me some questions, and early on I let them know I was on unemployment at the time, and you know, things were very tight and I wasn't having any luck finding work. And they never asked me much in the way of personal questions. They seemed to get very fascinated with the fact that I have birds. They were fascinated with the fact that I do artwork and I have podcasts, and we would just say nice things to each other. And since I stated early on that I was just completely broke, there was one point in time, about one or two months in that this person suggested maybe I should invest in crypto and kind of put a feeler out there, but they never made a demand, they never asked for information, nothing like that. And I just stated, well, I've got a very good friend that's highly knowledgeable in crypto, and if I ever feel the desire to dabble in that or have extra money, I would probably go that route because that person actually teaches a course about it so that you know how to invest properly. And fake Anthony Hopkins just dropped it. Like, well, I'm not gonna get nothing out of this one. That's a turn up I can't squeeze any blood out of. And fake Anthony Hopkins just continued to be nice on Telegram. The real Anthony Hopkins is not on Telegram. Fake Anthony Hopkins had a very poorly made blue check mark. Oh my gosh. It was very obvious, not a real certificate, you know, a validated account check mark. And I had a lot of fun trying to keep this person on their toes. I bet I had them on Google looking up Anthony Hopkins trivia over and over and over and over. So I don't know, it was very strange. And I kept up communication not every day. We would go a few weeks and well, and I would just always call this person sir, and I kept up the facade that I thought he was or she was Anthony Hopkins. And I would call this person sir, and well, how are you today, sir? Did you have a good holiday? You know, whatever. I saw in the news that you blah blah blah. Sometimes it would take this person a couple of days to respond, but you would see that they viewed the message, so I know they were researching it so they could respond properly. It got very humorous. And here again, they were very polite, and they got to the point where they were very encouraging and kind. Never got into a deep conversation, always stayed very surface, very nothing to it. I don't it was very strange. At one point in time, a month and a half probably passed, and then I got a message from this person You know, you're a very kind and nice individual. We really should stay in closer touch. I enjoy staying in touch with very decent people, and they would try to use a verbiage like maybe the real Anthony Hopkins would use, perhaps? Question mark. Not sure. So I would respond and we would say nice things to each other, and it was just the most curious and strange and nice interaction, and it was always pleasant, so I just never did anything about it. And I noticed that on the 4th of July, I got a very lovely sentiment from fake Anthony Hopkins, and I got busy with something and I didn't respond for a couple of days, and I was like, oh my gosh, I never responded to fake Anthony Hopkins. I gotta respond. And lo and behold, fake Anthony Hopkins was gone. Without a word, without a trace, account removed for fraudulent activity. So apparently fake Anthony Hopkins got busted. Maybe a bot caught the um fraudulent account. I don't know. But at any rate, fake Anthony Hopkins, wherever you are, whoever you are, I got a real kick out of our interactions. Thanks for always being nice. Thanks for not overstepping boundaries or being a jerk or trying to rip me off. You know, you're just generally pleasant. We all need pleasantries in this life. So whoever that person was, I do appreciate not ripping me off. I hope you're doing well. I hope you think about your life choices and stop ripping people off or whatever it is you were doing. Maybe you weren't good at it and you will go find a real job. I don't know. But uh you know, for a catfish that never stole a dime or even really attempted to, and in a world full of scammy, aggressive catfish type individuals, I mean it's kind of admirable. It really is. And um fake Anthony Hopkins, whoever you were, I just hope that uh you're having a nice day. I hope you get it figured out, and I really I really gotta say catfishing wasn't your forte, so just just don't do it anymore. Make better life choices. It's not worth it. Just uh go find your spot in life and make an honest paycheck. You won't regret it. For anyone else out there that's still with me at this point, I just gotta say, I'm not really wanting to be a shining example. You really should not engage with these people, because most of the time they're gonna try to hack you or scam you or do something. And in this particular case, there was nothing that they could hack into, and there was nothing they could take from me, and I was already aware that they were a catfish, so there really wasn't any deception going on there other than the facade. So be very, very careful out there, people. And my honest, solid advice on this is if you are approached by any kind of individual that you don't know on any kind of app, social media, um, anything of that nature, even email, okay? Be very careful. Be very careful, be wary, do your homework on it. And if there's no phone calls, if it's text only, I would be very cautious. Report it if you feel suspicious, or just block them if you're unsure. Okay, there's no harm in that. And don't worry about hurting somebody's feelings, because most likely they're lying to you about their name anyway. Whether they're pretending to be someone famous or not, you don't even know if they are who they say they are. They could be just pulling a name out of out of somewhere. So be careful, stay safe, always have fun. And if Anthony Hopkins hits you up for cryptocurrency, um you probably rest assured that it's not Anthony Hopkins. Alright, that's our episode for tonight. Have a good one, everyone. Stay safe out there and just be careful, okay? Be careful who you talk to, be careful who you interact with, and if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. With that said, all there is left to say is sleep tight, good night, and bye bye.