{"id":471055,"date":"2026-03-12T07:32:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T07:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/471055\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T07:32:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T07:32:07","slug":"aberdare-woman-has-identity-stolen-to-catfish-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/471055\/","title":{"rendered":"Aberdare woman has identity stolen to catfish men"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meanwhile, Sasha-Jay said she was sharing her story in the hope she gets answers and also wants people to be extra cautious when online.<\/p>\n

“I always thought, ‘oh, it’ll never happen to me’, and now it’s happened to me,” she said. <\/p>\n

“Social media is powerful, but there are still not enough safeguards to protect people from long-term impersonation and targeted attacks like this.”<\/p>\n

She wants social media platforms to introduce identification verification for an account, adding: “A fake profile might look harmless to some, but it can destroy reputations, relationships, and mental health.”<\/p>\n

Sasha-Jay is urging people to “be cautious about who you interact with online”, requesting users to keep profiles private, double-check accounts, report fake profiles immediately and protect personal information. <\/p>\n

“And most importantly, understand that what happens online does not stay online, it spills into real life in ways that can be deeply damaging,” she said.<\/p>\n

“No-one should have to fight to reclaim their own identity or feel unsafe because someone else is hiding behind a screen.”<\/p>\n

The UK government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, external<\/a> said all social media providers needed to protect users.<\/p>\n

“Impersonating or ‘catfishing’ as someone else online is a horrible form of abuse that can have distressing consequences for victims both on and offline,” a spokesperson said. <\/p>\n

“Under the Online Safety Act all in-scope services, including social media platforms, need to protect users from illegal content and criminal behaviour, including false communications offences.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Meanwhile, Sasha-Jay said she was sharing her story in the hope she gets answers and also wants people…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-471055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}