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Introduction to Savanna Spencer with Matt Feret [1:09]

Matt Feret:

Hello everyone. This is Matt Feret, author of Prepare for Medicare and Prepare for Social Security Insider's, guidebooks, and online course training series. Welcome to another episode of The Matt Feret Show, where I interview insiders and experts to help light a path to successful living in midlife retirement and beyond. Marquita, welcome to the show.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Thanks so much, Matt. I'm glad to be here today.

Matt Feret:

I am glad you're here. So, tell everybody what you do, how long you've been doing it, and how you help people.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Oh yeah. I've been a nurse for about 10 years, and I work in my day job of helping people by going with people who are injured from work and making sure that they get back to work. Sometimes that makes me a little bit tough drill sergeant. Sometimes that makes me a really strong patient advocate. Kind of depends on the case. So, I see a lot of different injuries and I'm really there to handhold and help work with a lot of caregivers.

Matt Feret:

And you've written a book, that maybe has to do with nursing, but really probably has to do with another topic. Tell us about it.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Sure. So, I wrote a book called “I Was Catfished, Don't Be Me!” and I wrote it with a pen name. I did not write it with my regular name, because there is a lot of issues around the concept of being catfished. And so, one of the things we will talk a little bit about catfishing, is that everyone feels ashamed if they've been catfished, somehow, they were too stupid and they should have known better. But a catfish, as we describe what it is, it's completely professional scammers, so nobody ever has to feel embarrassed or silly that they somehow got caught in a trap.

Defining Catfishing with Savanna Spencer [3:05]

Matt Feret:

Yeah. Okay, let's start there. So, I know there's a story behind that and I want to hear it. Tell me first, I mean, tell me what is catfishing? I've heard it. I think I've skimmed across it in news articles. I believe there was an MTV show with that title. I never watched it. What is it?

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

The catfishing TV show is kind of like watching Jerry Springer. If you love watching people's drama, then you would love catfish. It's not my cup of tea either, but some people are completely addicted to it. So, catfishing is basically where you pretend to be someone else, and generally it's for either financial reasons or for some type of love reasons. Taking revenge on someone. Your ex could pretend to be a new bodybuilder and put a new picture of himself and you're thinking you're talking to this hot body builder, when really you're talking to your ex. Most of catfishing, however, are organized gangs in West Africa who are preying on people for money.

Matt Feret:

Is this the same as when you get an email from the long lost relative of the Prince of Nairobi, which I think is an Eddie Murphy reference, and all they need to do is change money around or some version of that. Is that catfishing or are we talking? See, I was thinking catfishing was more on the relationship side.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

So, that's kind of the 30-year bygone catfishing, right? In the early days of trying to get someone to Western Union new money, it's much more sophisticated than that now. So, you might be reached out by people on Facebook or Instagram. Some people will talk to random strangers. If I get a random stranger that says, hey, I want to chat with you on Facebook, I'm going to immediately shut them down and not talk with them. But some people will just engage with a total stranger. Most of the time it's on dating websites. So, there's lots of dating sites, there's dating sites for seniors. I think it's called “My Time” is one of the ones for seniors. Of course, I'm on that now. I fit that age group now. And so, we talk about being a lot of scammers on dating sites. They say that 70% of the profiles are fake, because people don't want to show their picture or their picture's 10 years old, but this is different than that.

This goes beyond that. So, here's a person that is purposely reaching out to you on a dating site and starting to chat with you. Generally, the social culture is that we all just sit and chat and text on our phone. It's kind of like the dating steps. You meet somebody, you think they're cute, you kind of get off the profile and everybody just starts texting for a week or two. It's kind of silly because as humans, we should just go meet for coffee, do a web chat like this, say hi to the person, but we're all nervous about that face-to-face contact. So, we start texting and pretty much everybody would say that they do that same thing for a week or two, and you get so wrapped into that because you might be texting that person 15 hours a day. You're into that adrenaline and you get really wrapped in, and they know that.

So, these people, which sometimes, as I did my homework, are as young as 12 years old. So, there's literally a gang of teenagers and 20-year-olds that may be dictated by their boss, who knows, who are sitting in an internet cafe just hitting, hitting, hitting for numbers and trying to see who they're going to get with some handsome or gorgeous picture in front of them on a profile. You immediately start being attracted to this person because there's never any pushback. It's all compliments, it's all roses. So, you start to really get your ego stroked and you just kind of get sucked into that. Whereas a normal person, it might be back and forth, and that person's not available, or they're at work or whatever. So, it's very easy to get hooked. Once you're hooked, you’re kind of emotionally dependent on this person. You've enjoyed the conversation so much that even when you start getting a little bit of red flags, you don't feel like shutting it down because you've now have this person in your life that you've been chatting with. So, you don’t stop talking to them. You keep looking at your phone because you've been enjoying all those text messages. So, in my case-

Savanna’s Catfishing Story with Matt Feret [7:42]

Matt Feret:

Yeah, I going to say, tell your story. How did this happen?

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

I was on one of these sites and this gorgeous bald gentleman came on. He had no idea that bald is all my thing. And so, you almost wonder if they did background homework on you and know what your taste is. But I'm all about handsome bald men. So, he already had me.

Matt Feret:

Bald men listening everywhere just made a little smile. Someone out there likes all bald men. That's awesome.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Pit Bull is like the goal for me. Anybody that looks even similar to Pit Bull and I'm all in. So, we started-

Matt Feret:

This gorgeous bald man.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Yes, absolutely. Very, very hot. He was very, very hot as we proceed to talk. And so, one thing that they do is they will take over someone else's life. So, when they start talking about who they are, it's so close to the truth that it sounds realistic. So, when you find out later-

Matt Feret:

Hold on a second, they pretend to be someone? Full disclosure, I've never been on one of these dating sites. I have no idea how it works, conceptually I can figure it out. But so, you're on a dating site, there's a profile, somebody clicks, somebody sends a message, I'm guessing, is that how it happened? Like hey, and you're like, oh, hey.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Oh, hey, let's start chatting. And then very quickly you chat on the dating site a little bit and then you exchange numbers. And then, rather than old school, which I encourage everybody to do, you should pick up the phone and start talking to this person. None of us do that. We just start texting and that's pretty much like the social norm. So, I'm encouraging your audience as we get going in the story, break the social norm, stay with old school and pick up the phone if they give you their number because you'll know right away that something is off. Don't put the emotional investment into chatting with them forever and find out later that the person wasn't real.

So, we start chatting. He says he lives an hour from me and in my state, and he's like some furniture executive, and he says he's Norwegian. He looks Norwegian. He's this handsome bald dude. He looks Norwegian. Okay, fine, I could buy that. So, we talk forever and then we set up a dinner date out in Baltimore. I'm like an hour from Baltimore, and of course I go to the dinner date and I get completely stood up. I'm sitting there for an hour, finally eating my own food, pissed off beyond belief, texting him, and of course the typical guy thing, “Oh, I'm so sorry, I got held up at work, I’ll really make it up to you.” Generally, I would be, that's it. That's done. You stand me up, I'm done. I don't play. But again, they just have this psych training that they've had where you just kind of stay with it. Like, okay, alright, I understand, but don't you ever stand me up again. That doesn't fly. Now think about it. This guy's sitting in a West Africa internet cafe picking a restaurant in Baltimore, Maryland. How the hell does he do that? You see how organized and into this they get. I couldn't pick a restaurant in the middle of Côte d'Ivoire. So, I should have just been done, whether you're a catfish or just a jerk, done. But no, I kept chatting because I liked the conversation. I liked the company; I liked the conversations we were having.

Matt Feret:

He was bold.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

And he was bold. Yes. Well, one of the interesting things was is that they've learned active listening. So, they're very good listeners. How many dating people do we find that just want to talk about themselves? These people have learned to just listen and give pats on the back. So, I was starting some new businesses, and he would give advice and he would encourage me and he would say, go for it. That's all what we want to hear. So, who wants to stop those affirmations coming your way? So, the next thing I know, he's going on a furniture buying trip to Belgium and he's going to be out of the country for a little bit. We continue to chat. One of the things that a catfish does as they're trying to get you worked up to the point where they're going to ask you for money is they start to hype up chaos in their lives, right?

They're trying to get you hooked that you can be the savior. I think nurses are a really great target for them. Anybody that's in kind of a helping industry, we are all about, “Oh, you poor thing. Let me save you.” So, quickly while he's in Belgium he says, “Oh, I've got COVID. I'm in the hotel.”
Next thing I know, “Oh, my COVID is worse. I've had to be taken to the hospital.” So, he is just ramping up that whole victimhood. Next thing I know, I'm getting pictures of him in the hospital in his gown with an IV in his arm. Same dude, same picture, all photoshopped. Can you believe that he goes to that length of showing me a picture of himself in a hospital gown with an IV in his arm?

Matt Feret:

Who would? I guess I can.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Wouldn't you kind of believe that if you've been talking to this person and they say they have COVID, you're not typically thinking immediately, oh, this dude photoshopped this.

Matt Feret:

Right.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

So, what did Q do? I sent him meds. I sent a package to Belgium to the hospital because I was so certain that they wouldn't give him the right meds.

Matt Feret:

Did he ask for that?

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Nope. Just a nurse. Just a nurse thing. And that's one of the things they do is people will start offering to help. So, it doesn't feel like they're asking you for something like, oh, my phone's kind of struggling right here. I'm working on it, but I have a phone that's five years old and I'm doing my best here to text you. Well, then the person's like, oh yeah, let me just send you one. They will send all sorts of stuff and they're offering it up, right? They're not being asked for it. So that was my first help to figure out that this something was fishy. I'm tracking this package. I'm calling the hotel. No one there with his name. I'm looking at the hospital package isn't arriving, and all of a sudden I'm going, hey, this package has been sitting in customs for five days, and by the way, the guy's been in the hospital for two weeks while we're talking. You're not in the hospital for two weeks with COVID. You're either in heaven or you're on your way back home doing well. So started to put a little bit of that red flag.

Matt Feret:

Did you ask him at the time, why are you still in the hospital? Why aren't you getting my package?

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Oh, yeah, all the time. And it was, “I don't know, I guess it's in customs. It must be here soon.” It was generally, “Oh, I'm not feeling well. The doctor's walking in the room. I got to go now.” That was generally if I asked a tougher question.

Matt Feret:

Okay, so you're getting thoughts, or starting to cock the head to the side just a smidge and squint the eyes.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Think, okay, this isn't quite sounding right. So, I said, “Hey, let's do a call. Let's do a webcam. Let's chat for a minute. I'd really like to get to hear your voice. This texting forever is really getting on me.” So, he reluctantly agreed. Well, it went from this wonderful conversation that we've had on text to about a 30 second conversation where he was quickly cut off and did not in the least bit sound Norwegian. He sounded African.

Matt Feret

Okay.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Still, I did not immediately hang up the phone and run.

Matt Feret:

Wait, so a bald Norwegian with an African accent. There was a video chat or just audio?

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Just audio. And it was very muffled. He’s claiming he’s still in Belgium. So, it was kind of staticky.

Matt Feret:

“I have a mask on, that's why my voice sounds weird.” The whole thing.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Exactly. And I immediately sent him a text and sent him a YouTube of what Norwegians sound like, and I said, you didn't sound like this. Isn't this sound Norwegian accent, and he made some blah, blah, blah, excuse that he'd lived in several countries or that he's kind of a global citizen, some crap to cover it up and then quickly change the topic. So there, okay, I started to think, but hey, what was the harm? All I was doing was chatting with this hot dude. No harm in that. I'm just having a good time.

Matt Feret:

So, you're still holding out hope.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

I mean, there's always hope and it's fun to chat with him, but very time consuming. It sucks you away from your regular life of what you're doing. You have this new person in your life, and so every free minute you're texting them and it's really sucking out your emotional energy. So, at some point while he was in the hospital, he started to ramp up saying that he was sending back marble countertops to Baltimore for furniture, but he had nowhere to store them. Could I put them in my garage? Who asks a stranger you've never even gone on a date with to put something in their garage? I said, well, I live in a condo. So no, that wouldn't be the case. Oh, okay. I guess I'll put it in a storage unit, but do you think you could pay for the storage unit until I get back?

I was done. And at that point I didn't even really think I was catfished because I still was learning the concept of catfishing. I just thought I had landed with some loser dude, and I don't do loser dudes. I don't do anyone who's going to ask me for money, right? I'm looking for a guy who's nice and stable and we're going to have a good back and forth. I have a good income, he has a good income, I am not looking for some hang along. So, I was immediately done and pissed off just because a stranger would ever ask me for any kind of money, and I was done. So, I guess maybe that night or the next day, I don't know what hit me, but this great website came up maybe on Facebook or whatever email called Social Catfish. So that's the big site I want everybody to know about.

Social Catfish has been created to help people either find out if you've been catfished, help confront a family member if you think they've been catfished, and they will actually go and do the homework. And what they have is this cool tool, which again, I'm in my fifties, so I didn't know about all you young folks out there. You would know about it, but we might not, of reverse searching an image just like you would reverse search a phone number. I knew about reverse searching phone numbers, but I didn't know about reverse searching images. So I go to the site, they have a little tool, you just drop the picture in it, and you just sit and wait and there's this little timer going and going and you're watching the timer go. What it does is it pulls up all the profiles or anywhere on the web. He is a male porn star, a male porn star. He's married to a dude and his stuff is all over the internet, like his stuff.

Matt Feret:

Oh my God.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

So, we're not just talking about like, oh, this is a profile picture who's on 20 other pages.

Matt Feret:

Or not like somebody traveled to Norway and took a picture of a random guy on the street or ended up in a brochure for dentistry that they stole.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Exactly. Exactly, exactly. That took a little bit to just sit and absorb what I was looking at.

Matt Feret:

I bet.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

In more ways than one. So, I would encourage people immediately, if you meet anyone online, anywhere, go and reverse search their picture before you even start chatting. See if their picture is on 20 other sites before you get any emotional investment. It that takes two seconds to do, and it can alleviate a ton of the emotional heartache you can have during it. And hopefully not be surprised that you are talking to a male porn star. Well, that's the thing, right? He's not a male porn star. He's some dude in West Africa stealing this male porn star's photos.

Matt Feret:

So, I mean, the feelings that you must have had after realizing all this, right, your spidey sense goes off. You might blow through a couple of different instances of spidey sense, but at some point, it's full front and center and you're like, no, I'm out and you cut it. Did this individual try to get you back?

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

So actually no, I immediately confronted him, and it was just “poof” gone, total scammer. Just blocked, done after three, four sentence texts that I knew he was dah, dah, dah. There wasn't a response, there wasn't an excuse. There wasn't an “Oh baby. Oh baby.” It was just poof. Gone onto the next one. But what I did do is I researched the name and so on of who he was using, and I contacted the real dude with the photos, the real porn star dude, just because I wanted him to know, hey, did you know your photos are out there or whatever. I just thought I would reach out to him, and it turns out that he is just as much the victim as I am, and that's something important for the audience to know. So, he says this has been going on for five years and he has not been able to get his photos shut down. He says random strangers will come up to him on the street and start cussing him out because they see his picture. He says it’s been absolutely devastating for his family. I never really thought about how they're also the victim of whoever's photo is getting stolen for all these times and passed around.

Matt Feret:

And then I wrote, regardless of vocation, I guess, I mean you could take the adult film star. No, you said porn stars. You can take the porn star out of it, but if it's just some random guy or some random executive, yeah, I mean anybody's going to get impacted no matter what their vocation is.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

I could just imagine, being a nurse, and nurses need to have a respectable personal life and so on. And if my picture was passed around on all these things being used to scam people. Now, clearly the pictures they're using are the hottest pictures. So, you should kind of get a sense, okay, if I'm a five and I'm getting hit on by a 10, we all kind of know those equal, right? If I'm a one, I'm not going to get hit on by a 10. So, if you're hit on by a 10, maybe you might think a little bit if some hot model in your phone is hitting on you and you're like, 50 sitting in your sofa drinking beer, maybe you better think that, hey, there might be something fishy here, right?

Matt Feret:

I mean, it's true. Yes. Okay, I see your point.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

So, I mean, that could be kind of one thing. So, one of the things that I want people to realize is it literally feels, when you're asking me about how do you feel emotionally, it feels like you just lost a spouse. Somebody was just killed in a car accident, and they're just gone. You really, literally have to grieve for a while. It's not just you're mad, some idiot tried to screw you over. You feel like that void. I want to go to my phone. Where's my chatting buddy? Where's my person? Where's my go-to person? Because that person becomes really important to you emotionally for everything you've been venting about your life and all of a sudden, poof, it's just gone. It's a really hard thing to deal with. And my situation was only a few months, maybe six months. I mean, some people are into this for two, three years. I just met a wonderful young lady in Australia who is a personal, what do you call it, an advocate, and she was catfished.

Matt Feret:

Oh, patient advocate.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Yes. She was catfished for 10 years, so you can only imagine. Yeah, and she thought she was being catfished as a teenager with another 17-year-old, and so they broke up, but they kept chatting throughout their life of just how things were going and so on. And then she found out from Social Catfish that it was like a 55-year-old dude when she was 16 who'd been chatting with her for a decade.

Matt Feret:

Oh, that's creepy.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Because it's like an emotional attachment. It's not just about money.

Matt Feret:

That's crazy and gross,

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

The longer you're reeled in, the harder it is to cut it, and it feels a little bit maybe I think I could understand domestic violence a little bit more after this because you know how we're always saying to women, don't go back. Don't go back, leave the dude, and they leave the dude for a week and then they go to a shelter and then they come back. It's the exact same thing. You're just feeling that emotional attachment that you don't want to lose. So, if you ever get catfished, it's necessary and perfectly fine to go get some professional help and really be able to deal with it because it is just like you're dealing with grief and don't feel stupid that it happened to you.

The Emotional Experience of Being Catfished [26:33]

Matt Feret:

Right. I was going to say, so you mentioned grief, you mentioned anger, you mentioned sadness, you mentioned a whole bunch of emotions in there, and I guess I think you mentioned this too earlier, shame, embarrassment. Yes, I bet. Did you go through all those?

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Definitely go through those, the whole standard five cycles of grief. Yeah, I think most people don't tell their friends and families that it happens because most people are just embarrassed. We're all taught that if you get catfished, like we talked about, some of those signs I should have been aware of, but I kind of just chose to ignore them. So, we feel stupid that we got catfish, and so we don't tell anybody about it. People may lose thousands of dollars and never have told their family because they feel so stupid that they got sucked in. I could have easily been sucked in and I don't know, paid for a storage unit. A lot of times they'll do things like, I'm at immigration, I'm flying here to see you right now, and there's some, I don't know, whatever fee, tax fee. Can you wire me some money? Or I just dropped my phone and it broke. Can you send me money? They try to make a panic situation for you to immediately have a call to action to help them. That's very typical with a catfish.

How to Spot a Catfish with Savanna Spencer [27:50]

Matt Feret:

What are the other typical ones that you've run into since writing the book?

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Well, again, I feel like my situation is that typical thing in West Africa, but I've also seen a lot of things within the US where people have been prosecuted, such as a mom wanting to stand up for her daughter who's been bullied. So, she pretends to be somebody and reaches out. She pretends to be a handsome high schooler and reaches out to the bullies and tries to get back for her daughter. There's a lot of things like that where someone is portraying someone else for some type of either love reason or revenge reason and hoping to feel like they got back at the person.

There's lot of interesting weird psych things out there that go on, but I think for your audience, I want to just make sure that people are safe online if you're dating and those basic tips of never ever giving anyone money, and think about it, if you're giving somebody money, do you really want to date that person whether they're catfishing you or not? Just think of those basic terms as though they're another human being. If your uncle Joey asks you for money, I'm sure you're the first one to tell 'em to go jump in a lake, so you do the same thing with some stranger online. So never ever, ever give a dime out of your own pocket and always go check their picture.

Matt Feret:

Check their picture. So, it’s sometimes over social media, but mostly on dating sites, is that right?

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

I would say that my view is dating sites because that's what I was exposed to, but I am seeing more and more that it's moving now to TikTok, to Facebook. Random strangers pop up and say, hey, you want to chat? That's becoming now the new catfishing where random strangers will try to talk to you. I would assume that no one would talk to a random stranger, but I'm hearing that they absolutely will start a conversation and think, oh, they saw my picture. They thought I was cute. They're going to start talking to me. So that's becoming the new trend. If you have any stranger ever pop up to say hi to you on social media that you don't know, just block them. Don't ever talk with a random stranger online becoming the new target.

Matt Feret:

If you're on dating sites, let's just say over a certain age, and you may not be used to this game that a 20 or 30 something year old might be used to by now. You said don't ever send the money. Are there any other tips or signs to watch out for? I mean, I know there have to be common messages yet as soon as they become common, I'm sure they change because they're smart. They've been doing this for a long time. Are there any other common things that people should be attuned to believe in their spidey sense if they feel it, even though resist that draw of, look, someone's paying attention to me. Any other things kind of right up front or early on that looking back you went, you know what? My spidey sense did not go off and it should have.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Well, my guy did not do the standard. So, the standard catfishing where you can just run immediately is, I'm working on an oil drill somewhere in the middle of the ocean. Or, I'm military overseas. I won't be back for six months. I would love to have a pen pal and then we can meet when I get back. Those are the two standard catfish lines. If you ever get that immediately run already, it's a scam. I don't know why they have chosen those two or why they haven't gone into something new, but those are the two that you'll see over and over again. I guess they think the military gives them a good reason for why they're not meeting you in person. They always have to have a reason of why they're not going to be able to see you in person.

Matt Feret:

Then that's the other thing. They always have to give you a reason of why they can't meet you in person.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Yeah, there's always a business trip or a work trip. If you get on a dating site, meet the person, go have a cup of coffee with them in the first week to say, hey, you know what? I really don't like this whole texting thing. Let's just see if we even have a connection or not. Let's not waste both of our time. Why not cut to the chase? Why not just go have some coffee, go meet that person, rule them off your list, or think you've just met Mr. Wonderful, and go from there. So that's the first really piece of advice I would say is check their picture but try to meet with them as soon as possible and at least don't text and talk to them on the phone because their voice can sound boring, whatever drive you crazy very quickly, and it's a much better way to know than chatting.

Matt Feret:

If I've never been in this world, or I'm say, recently divorced. How long have dating sites been out there now? 20 years, 25 years? Again, I've been married a very long time.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

I was on a dating site in 2008, when I was first divorced. So that’s been a while.

Matt Feret:

Yeah, I started dating my wife in 1998. It was the last century, so I have no idea what this is, but I have to imagine that if I were found myself suddenly single, I'd go on a dating site maybe. I don't know if I would, but let's pretend I would. And how do I kind of filter out the, I guess, is there a way I can somehow filter early on the fakers versus real people? Any other advice for anyone going out there in the world and not wanting to get scammed, but maybe just trying to find another friend?

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Well, their grammar is immediate. You can tell if someone can't write a proper sentence. If there's any kind of weird word in the sentence where it just doesn't sound American, that's a huge red flag right away, and you can tell that very quickly in their messages. This dude did not have that. This dude could write. He obviously was in an African country where they had very good English because his English was perfect, but generally on the dating sites, you'll immediately catch bad grammar. So don't just think to yourself, oh, well maybe he just finished high school and he's just not a great writer, so I'll just let it pass. If he's got bad grammar, you need to pass.

Matt Feret:

Okay, so it's almost like those phishing emails you get too. The logo looks kind of similar, but there's something off.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Yes. I just got one yesterday and it is like you have a package waiting and it's a little brown whole thing, but it doesn't say UPS on it. You're like, okay, don't click here.

Matt Feret:

Yeah, no. And the ones too where it just comes from, the email account comes down and it says UPS, but then when you actually drop it down and look at the email address, it's like UPSABC123RUSSIA@gmail.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Model Russia, yes, yes. Probably whatever. You're going to feel like you want to click it. So, the last thing I wanted to just touch on is if you have a family member, maybe you have an aunt, maybe it's your dad. How many folks do we see on 90-day Fiance where there's a guy who's talking to a girl in Poland and she's some hot girl in Poland, and he's sending her money every month and he's supporting her and we're all watching the show wondering why he keeps doing that. If you have someone like that in your life and you're trying to get them to see the light, you're trying to, hey, I don't think that person's real. You keep sending money. I hate to see you losing your money. When it comes to love and it comes to people's emotions, it's pretty hard to attack a family member or convince them because they're solidly convinced of this person's story, whatever the story is that they're given, and they're perfectly happy to keep giving them money every month.

So, if that's the case, Social Catfish will actually do an intervention. You can talk to Social Catfish. They'll help investigate the person. They'll help get all the information. They can even have the real-life person, the real-life person of the picture, be willing to come on and talk to your family member so you can kind of set it up to have their help, because that is what they do is try to help people and help family members. So, there are some tools out there. Again, I don't work for Social Catfish. I'm just really impressed with the things that they've been able to do and help people to get out of losing more money, and obviously that's a huge fight you would have with anybody in your family or your mom or your dad that you're trying to help them get out of that.

Matt Feret:

Yeah, I was going to say, what's my role if mom's single, either by choice or by circumstance or dad is too, and they're getting out there and they have no idea what they're walking into, what's my role as a caregiver or someone? Should I be putting, sticking my nose in there, encouraging them or looking over their shoulder? What's your advice for somebody looking after somebody who may not know what they're doing or just jumping back into something?

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

If you feel like they're very not tech savvy, I would just politely offer a, hey, I could really help you ramp up your profile. Let's sit and do this together. If they're not a tech savvy person, and maybe that will give you an inroad to be also able to say, hey, if you get hit by somebody, I'd love to see who they are. You got to show me the hot whoever came in your life, and always try to do it that way from a positive site perspective of I'd love to be a part of it then to be like, hey, that really is awful. There's a bunch of scammers out there because all they're going to do is then hide it and not want to share with you. The more friendly you are about it, and the more teasing you are about it, the better than if you are after them about it or telling them they shouldn't be doing that because of course, just like a kid with their hand in the cookie jar, they're going to do it and just not tell you about it. Next thing you'll know is you'll find out that they lost $5,000 and didn't want to say anything about it.

Matt Feret:

Yeah. Crazy. I was just thinking back to the whole late nineties, 1998 thing. We didn't have to deal with any of that back then. Did we? Are the nineties just better? That's my question. The nineties just better.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Hey, I'll take it back to the eighties. The eighties rock.

Matt Feret:

Eighties. Okay. Eighties. Were pretty good.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Yeah, but I mean since COVID, right? We're, we're all home. I work from home. I leave my home and I go to appointments, and then I come back to my house. Where am I going to meet people? It's just unfortunately we don't have that. I mean, I meet people at church. I'm not going to meet somebody I'm probably going to want to date at church. There is a really great group now or app called Meetup, and it's nothing to do with dating. It has all sorts of social activity groups, and it's not for seniors, it's for everyone. Mountain climbing, go to Peru, go have wine, whatever you're interested in. And that's a really good to be able to get out there and meet real people and go out in real settings. And there's senior groups in there if that's your thing, whatever your thing is, and I think that's a way better way. Go take a salsa class, go learn something you've never had a chance to do before. Then you can meet some singles that way. Much better than sitting at home by yourself in your bedroom, chatting with some stranger.

Matt Feret:

And if you've got somebody in your life that's single and looking, I'll do it for you, buy 'em the book. What else are they going to learn in that book of yours?

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Well, definitely the tips that I've been talking about of what to do to really stay safe, and then also how you can report things if something happens to you. I list a lot of different resources within the government and so on, what you can do to report something if something's happened. Because there are different places that can prosecute depending on where and what it happens. And we don't need to get into all the details, but there is that I provide on what to do if you've lost money and how you can go after the person or try to recoup it. I mean, I would love to know who it was that catfished me. I would love to see if it was some little 14-year-old who's been talking to me for six months. It would be so much fun just to see the person, not to be mad, but more to just be like, it was you. You're the dude that was catfishing me all the time, like my heart and soul pouring out to some 16-year-old. It would be interesting to know. Obviously, it's easier to find out if there's somebody in the us. You pretty much can't if they're overseas. But it certainly would pique my curiosity to know.

Matt Feret:

Well, I dunno if this is going to sound weird, but you seem to have a great attitude about it. It's kind of a, see if it's actually a 14-year-old or a 16-year-old that was talking to me for six months, that's a great attitude to have.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Well, and maybe it would be different if I'd given him $10,000. Maybe I'd have a little bit of a different feeling if I had forked over a bunch of money. But since I saved myself out of that, it's more like I got out of that one. Let me write a book. Let me share with people. Let me make sure that they don't get catfish too. Which is why I wrote it and called it “I Was Catfished, Don't Be Me!” Which is obviously not grammatically correct, but just was that whole point of don't be me. I can make fun of myself. I can laugh at what happened, I can get past it. And it was very cathartic to write the book and be able to share the story. And the more that I wrote about what happened, the more I thought, oh my gosh, I'm writing it down. And I'm thinking, really, really? You kept talking to them because the red flags kept hitting as I'm writing it. But there is just a huge psych component to it that they've really been trained on how to active listen. And we all love people who will listen to us.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion with Matt Feret and Savanna Spencer [42:41]

Matt Feret:

Exactly. Well, thank you for writing it. Thank you for coming on the show and telling everybody, it's everybody about it. And what questions or question about catfishing and catfishing over 50 did I not ask that I should have?

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Well, I would say that we pretty much have covered it, but I would say the main tip is for people to just remember any red flags on a dating site. The minute somebody cute hits you up first and reaches out to you, go and do a reverse search. Check their picture, make sure they're not a porn star like I got hooked into. Make sure you check their grammar, make sure that they're not giving you a line about being overseas and meet them as soon as you possibly can or talk to them on the phone, any kind of excuses that they can't meet you in person. Huge red flag that you need to run.

Matt Feret:

Mariquita, thanks so much for being on the show.

Mariquita “Savanna” Spencer:

Thank you, Matt. It was great.

Matt Feret:

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