Impersonation

Yesterday, I felt a new type of violation. For the first time, I found out that someone clear in Virginia was impersonating me. I decided to look through my "Other" messages in facebook. Over a year ago, a guy wrote me saying, "lol I had somebody sending me pics of you pretending to be you. I used a google image search to see if they were who they said, and it sent me to your blog. Funny." I naturally dismissed it as a ploy to try and get a response out of me, so I ignored it.

Then I saw I had received another message from a different guy a couple months ago saying:

"Ok so I dont want this to be weird to you and I know you have a fiancee. I dont know how to say this but here's a start. A few weeks ago someone made a facebook account by the name Kelsey Battaglia. All her photos consisted of all of yours etc. This person behind all this made me fall hard for you until one day I did some research and found the real you. If you dont believe me I have proof lol. I dont want to stir up anything between you and your love but I wanted you to know that someone stole your pictures and was living a fantasy through them and made me think otherwise. I later confronted them about it and they deleted it. I then I found out who it really was. If you need to know anything else just message me back. Have a good one."


So this really had my intention. If it was just a ploy, why would he offer proof and give me her name? Also, he had recently just gotten back together with his baby momma (a couple weeks after writing me). I felt bad for the guy, being deceived like that. So I looked up her name and this is what I saw...

I stared in shock for a moment and had a knot in my stomach. I felt like someone stole my identity! As I flipped through her profile pictures, they were all of me. She even cropped Marc out of one of my pictures! I used to have all of my albums private except for profile pictures and the albums of Marc and I. But I immediately made everything private so this doesn't happen again. I wrote her to remove my pictures and I reported her to facebook. They investigated it and removed her profile within an hour. 

Apparently, you can search on google through images. That's how those two men found me, because my picture led to my blog/facebook/etc. What a trip... I can't believe she had been doing that for over a year!!! I mean, the only bright side is that it was kind of flattering.. I guess? Anyway, I felt like I needed to take a shower haha I sure had a good workout last night getting out my frustration! I definitely have learned my lesson.. Keep your facebook private people!!! As for this blog? I guess there isn't a privacy setting huh... oh well. Now I'm paranoid and keep doing image searches of myself lol