IDENTITY THEFT
I was going through some grindr profiles as I usually do when I get bored, when a profile caught my attention. The profile had the picture of someone I knew, not personally though. The guy is someone whose Facebook profile I’ve come across and gone through a number of times, even though I’ve never sent him a friend request. This isn’t because I mind being his friend. It’s because with a look at his Facebook profile, one can immediately tell that he is gay. This is due to the sort of pictures he uploads. Now, I have nothing against people who upload raunchy pictures on the social network; my misgivings about this guy however stemmed from the fact that he is young and his pictures are too revealing, some of them of the fact that he’d just had sex, most of them of him with other males in not-so-subtly compromising positions.
Anyway, because of this, I just could not add him on Facebook because I know I have some people, friends and family, who snoop on my Facebook profile, as though waiting for me to do or say something. I remember some years ago, when I had numerous gay friends on Facebook, there was this male friend of my younger sister, who I’d gotten close to because I had a thing for him. And one day, he asked me if I was gay, because (according to him) I had too many gay friends on Facebook. I laughed off his supposition. He however persisted later in telling me to be careful. So, I had to whittle my (gay) friend list to a negligible number of those who do not post ‘funny’ pictures.
Anyway, back to my story, when I saw this guy (let’s call him Rick) on grindr, the thing that struck me was the kind of picture he’d uploaded as his profile picture. He had on just a pair of white undies, and nothing else, and his entire body, including his face, was in full reveal. I wasn’t entirely surprised by this, because I was already used to his provocative pictures on Facebook. But I still had a problem with him putting up this kind of picture on a gay app.
I sent him a message and we got chatting. I was starting to like the person I was chatting with. Then I asked him if the picture was his, and he answered in the negative. That meant the person I’d being chatting with wasn’t the Rick on the picture. I asked why he used the picture, and he said the guy was his friend. I told him that I knew Rick, and he begged me not to tell him. I acquiesced because it wasn’t my business. Subsequently, I asked this guy for his pin and we moved over to BBM. When I asked for his picture and he sent it, the person I saw had very discouraging looks, so I deleted him.
Some days later, again on grindr, I spotted a very close online friend, Joshua. We haven’t met because we’re in different cities, but we’ve being friends for some time. Anyway, I was quite surprised to see him on grindr; not only that, I was surprised to see that he’d uploaded his picture. Now, I know he is not the first or only grindr user to upload his personal picture there, but the ones I have seen are edited so much as to make it quite hard for any casual observer to tell the actual identities of the persons in them. But the kind of photo Joshua uploaded was extremely clear; it was a portrait photo, one that looked like a passport.
I decided to send him a message, and the first thing I wrote was, ‘So, you are also here.’
And he was like, ‘How do you mean?’
I replied with, ‘It’s me na.’ My personal picture was also up on my profile, and even though it wasn’t as clear as his, I expected him to recognise me.
He didn’t, and that soon became obvious to me with his responses. I thought perhaps he either genuinely didn’t recognise me or he was simply playing at it. I decided to play along, and chatted on with him as though we never knew ourselves.
After some days, I got bored with the ‘game’ and called him up to tell him it was me who’d being chatting with him on grindr. Joshua’s response startled me; he’d never even heard of grindr before. I thought he was joking, so I sent him a screenshot of his grindr picture and some of our chats there. He expressed surprise, and said he’d only used that photo on whatsapp and that he had just four gay contacts on whatsapp. He asked me to keep on chatting with whoever the grindr person was, in order to get his name and contact. It took me weeks because the guy did not trust me, but after much playing at me loving him and wanting to date him, he eased up on his cageyness and gave me his number.
I promptly handed the number over to Joshua, who confirmed that it belonged to someone he knew, who he was acquaintances with. (Let’s call him Judas). Now, Joshua told me Judas had a steady boyfriend and that they lived together as a couple. Apparently, Joshua had hooked up with Judas’ boyfriend, without knowing he was dating someone. When he found out, he broke off the casual intimacy he had with the guy. They however remained friends, and this boyfriend subsequently introduced Joshua to his guy, Judas. And Judas began asking Joshua out. (I know, two slutty guys dating each other; makes you think of their relationship as a joke) Joshua of course refused his overtures. And the more he refused, the more Judas pestered him for a hookup.
Anyway, now armed with his knowledge of Judas’s shenanigans with his photo, Joshua confronted him. Of course, Judas initially denied the allegation, and then after sometime, he relented and ‘blamed the devil’. (This devil sef, he has suffered) And as though he suspected I was the one who exposed him to Joshua, Judas blocked me on grindr. Or perhaps, he simply deleted Joshua’s picture from the gay app. Either way, I stopped seeing his profile there.
Joshua also the issue to Judas’s boyfriend, who said he was going to talk to him. We all thought everything was okay, until Joshua told me that a friend of his told him that he’d being chatting with him on his second 2go account. Joshua claimed he has just one 2go account, and his friend said he’d being chatting with someone who had his picture on this new 2go account. And that the reason he brought it up with him was because he was startled when he (this second 2go account user) started soliciting money from him. Apparently, the guy had asked for money and credit.
Joshua quickly became both confused and outraged by this chain of events. He couldn’t tell why Judas was using his pictures and identity, or if it was even Judas doing this on 2go. And if it was, he couldn’t tell why the guy was so obsessed with him, and if he was doing all this to punish him for rejecting his sexual advances. Last I checked, he was planning to travel to Asaba to confront the Judas face-to-face on the issue. Joshua’s grouse is that someone he knows might get to find out about him, and he could be identified as a gay guy.
I can also remember a case that happened on Facebook last year, when a gay atheist began soliciting funds from his Facebook contacts, citing assistance for different issues, one of which that he was running an orphanage. Now, this guy was obviously a scammer, but that was not my problem. My problem stemmed from the fact that he used the picture on his profile of someone I was positive wasn’t him. And perhaps, this someone had no idea his photo was being used as a face of a scam. If the owner of the picture were to be seen in public by someone who’d being scammed by this gay atheist, they’d assume that he was the one that asked for the money, and that could result in grave consequences for him.
It is one thing to be gay, and it is another to be a criminal, being guilty of identity theft. If you want to use anyone’s picture but yours on a gay site, why not use the photo of a popular face, like a musician or a model, someone people would know instantly isn’t you. And if you must use an ordinary person’s picture, you should at least crop out his face, so as not to endanger the individual.
Nigeria is a very dangerous place, and there is no gay site you won’t meet homophobic guys.
Sometimes, I wonder why anyone would use someone else’s picture on his profile to get acquainted with people they hope to eventually meet. Do they not wonder how deceitful potential hookups would find them to be if they discovered that the picture they’d being peddling online was not truly them when they meet? Or are people not as concerned about this issue of contrary identities as I am? Do you get acquainted with one face online, and then meet another face in real life and still go on being friends or bed partners with this obviously deceitful human being?
It is quite annoying, I must say. These episodes have made me realize that sometimes, there’s no knowing what has been going on behind our backs or who has been using our pictures to commit fraud. There are some strangers you see who would either get confrontational or strangely familiar with you on the road, and you’d be confused and bewildered as to the familiarity. Who knows… Perhaps, your identity is out there making money or gaining undue attention for someone else.
We are fighting for acceptance and recognition in this country and the world at large. Yet, there are some people out there who are busy sullying the persona of gay people. It is wrong. It is despicable. And the people guilty of this, if you are reading this, you should STOP!
Written by Sinnex
About author
You might also like
Kenya Could Become the Next Country in Africa to Legalize Homosexuality
Originally published on vice.com In a country where gay sex is punishable by up to 14 years in prison and where attacks on the LGBT community occur frequently, a solitary
#HowIResist Campaign 6
Anything that can happen is by definition natural. If two women can find a way to sexual pleasure, then by the obvious evidence nature already allows it. If a man
HANDWRITTEN
Sometimes, it can be easy to exist in the world with a jadedness that comes from being a gay person in today’s society. But then comes along someone who shakes
42 Comments
pete
May 02, 07:03Identity theft is criminal
obatala
May 02, 10:34evil is bad.
.
.
cap’n obvious
Femi
May 02, 07:27I wish those guys will hear…wonder y sum pple r not proud of who they r…I hv been a Vitim of this too..where sum1 used. my picture on manjam wen I don’t even hv account there, a frnd informed me, and I discovered he got d pix from my fb…it wasn’t really funny, tho he later took it off after my frnd threatened him
Jamie
May 02, 07:30Hmm…
Disappointing!!!
Colossus
May 02, 07:44Please ooo, if una see any of my picture for all these sites, make una tell me ooo. I can’t be here, licking mango and somebody would be somewhere using my picture to find banana to lick. To those that know me, Biko ooo, help a brother. I am not on manjam, womanflee, 2go, 4cum, grindr or blender.
Ehen, sinnex nwanne, all these sites that you are visiting and not allowing even one person to pop your cherry, there is God ooo.
pinkpanthertb
May 02, 07:45Hahahahahaa!!! I had the same thought fleet through my mind. Sinnex, stop all this online teasing and rough play and give your D the reprieve it deserves mbok.
Teflondon
May 02, 08:41Lool Colossus Smh you just had to add that didn’t you?
You have a reserved throne in hell. Loool
Pinky you keep encouraging Sinnex to “Pop the cherry” why not help a nigga’s D with those fat juicy A** of yours.. And don’t ask me how I know. Hehehehe
Chris
May 02, 09:02Lol@ grindir or blender..
Chris
May 02, 10:02hahaha @Colossus i didnt notice 4cum, cant stop laughing, u wan kill somebodi this wonderful morning,
4cum kwa?
paul
May 02, 08:00I deleted him because he had discouraging looks!
Pls show me the ant u have created?
trystham
May 02, 08:29Sumbori is angry
Deola
May 02, 08:45Lol.
Sinnex
May 02, 18:50Na wa oooo!
I am sure we all have preferences. I can’t count the number of times I have been deleted or blocked. No hard feelings if you have been a victim.
Absalom
May 02, 08:10It’s one of those things; people impersonate others OFF hookup apps.
PS: Why did you describe somebody as a “gay atheist”?
trystham
May 02, 08:24This ‘Joshua’ person must be pretty hot. That said, it is a worrisome trend indeed. To tell d truth, being on this blog gave me lil guts to put up a pic on my cyber profiles. However, I know the damages that impostors n impersonators can do seeing as it was a Straight ‘Yahoo boy’ who unwittingly introduced me to the 1st gay site I registered on.
wondabuoy
May 02, 08:25There’s this guy on badoo that was chatting with me. I was not in any way wanting to meet him; maybe due to some “uncommon” allowance of events. So we chatted for more than a year. He wanted to come see me in my place. I strongly declined. So we finally met at Best Bites and my first comment was “But you are not the person on the profile”. “Yes, I know; that’s my friend but he’s no more in Nigeria” bla bla bla. He went on to say how much he liked me; i was even more beautiful physically than in the photos. yada yada yada. lol.
…
…
Badoo has a lot more “fake” abi “fearful” guys than elsewhere that I know. Remember the case sometime ago of a married man that was killed somewhere in obigbo. Badoo things.
This identity theft of a thing -using your photo as a profile photo is even scary these days because you won’t know who will eventually save it to their devices. One very critical question or maybe a sequel to this story should be titled “Identity Theft -how to protect yourself”. Some Dos and don’ts.
Diablo
May 02, 08:30I’ve never really been one to msg or respond to chats of guys who have their face up on pfls ‘cus it reeks of desperation and u can bet that it some cases, it isn’t there’s. But then this issue of identity theft is just plain cruel! BBM eliminates the need to send pics that could later be stored due to its recent timed-msg feature but not all apps can boost of having that. I don’t think there’s really dt much a person can do to prevent his identity from being stolen. The best is to allow their personality speak for them. Some ppl have such distinct personalities that ppl repeatedly fall short at conveying it, its a fact we’ve seen here on KD, Tefenatley…( and co’s)
Ola
May 02, 08:40This is an act of wickedness, knowing how risky it is to use your own, you use another person’s own, not caring the consequence. That is indeed evil
Deola
May 02, 08:52Why Gay atheist though?? Gay Christian?? Gay Muslim?? Gay Hindu?? Sounds funny.
Identity theft. I kept thinking of Melissa McCarthy’s Identity thief while reading this so I couldn’t take this seriously.
That being said. Using someone else’s identity. Super dick move.
I also suspect everyone on KD will deny having done it leaving us wondering who are they people doing it then?? ***clear throat and sips mint tea***
Absalom
May 02, 09:12Deola honey, you can open the floor by admitting that you have used other people’s pics in your profile. *licks yoghurt spoon*
trystham
May 02, 09:19You sound guilty of identity theft.
Deola
May 02, 09:57Lol…una no well.
Sinnex
May 02, 19:00Lol…
We have different kinds of atheist na. He was part of a group for atheist on Facebook. He scammed almost all of them. It was a friend of mine who told me about it and he told me the guy also asked him for money but he did not give because he did not have. I did not go into details because that was not why I brought it up.
IVANKO
May 02, 09:08A friend once saw my picture on manJam( I was in Malaysia then schooling jeje ooo ) and he was like hey Dear so u now have branch in Enugu loll… Na God go punish anybody way use my face get satin belong to me…..
Chris
May 02, 09:15Your pic on any social media is the quickest way to be outed in Nigeria. The type
of friends on ones facebook will tell your family and straight friends about your
sexuality. O sure ju.
ocee77
May 02, 09:24This is so wrong.Apart from never putting up a selfie on all these sites,is there any other way one can prevent identity theft????????????????
Max
May 02, 09:25One of the reasons I peek into grindr once in a while is to check if someone is using my pic. I know people can be craaaaaaazzzy.
Teflondon
May 02, 09:58Yinmu..
Teflondon
May 02, 10:09I don’t keep Gay Frnds on all my social apps.. God knows, it’s not abt pride. It’s just that, I have trust issues. Due things things like what is mentioned above by Sinnex and also going through my contacts to take steal hook ups from my list of str8 frnds. Esp Fbk. the lesser the gay frnds you keep the lesser for you experiencing things like this. We are just too promiscuous to behave.
Identity theft is a sad reality and its a big crime. It should be kicked out from the community. I experience it a lot, the other day a 40 something year old Kenyan man was using my pic to do all sorts on Fbk… I had to report his acct.
I’m not on Grindr or whatever Gay app.. I’ve always wondered what yall are looking for on all these apps.. Esp those deceiving themselves that one can be in a truthful relationship in Nig. Most of these relationships are built on lies. Why not be like me.. Shag, have fun, be very good frnds and live your lifes. Than seeking a Cinderella-like relationship. It just doesn’t work in this parts of the world.
We love to pretend a lot and it’s sad. Wake up people!
zinnat
May 02, 10:40Perharps u have something in comnon with the 40 something year old Keyan *hold laffs*.
Be like u? U mean we shd be shagging inside Naija prison in front of other cellmates after patronising babalawo? Naah! I’ll pass.
trystham
May 02, 10:49:O *scuttles to the other side of the road to avoid the splash*
Chris
May 02, 10:59Not judging, but reckless sexual encounters are not always fulfilling. Moreso if you are not an ‘out’guy, you cant be gallivanting from Ilorin to Ib all in the name ‘shagging and having fun’ One might as well advertise ones sexuality in major newspaper.
pinkpanthertb
May 02, 13:00Zinnat!!!!! Hahahahahahahaa!!! That was hot!
sommy
May 02, 10:17oh well, you won’t understand the restlessness this crime causes until you fall victim. i have been a victim of identity theft, someone impersonated me on facebook, he used my pictures all over his profile, he even uploaded new ones at weekly intervals, the day i found out i reported the profile to facebook several times, but they didn’t react. (till recently). I honestly don’t get why people would do that. you obviously can’t get a reasonable person to love you with another’s face can you?. *sighs* ike gwuru
Vhar.
May 02, 10:45I’ve done it before o!
trystham
May 02, 10:52SHAME ON YOU!!! You are a good boy tho. I hope u have taken them down or put up disclaimers.
Vhar.
May 02, 11:04Tehehehehehe.. I have na.
This happened years ago…
Ruby
May 02, 11:01Well said Sinnex Darling!
That’s the more reason I find it difficult using Мy photographs on social networks.
I’d rathere post a photograph of a job I did or some random event ideas.
I may be Gay but I still loooove my privacy n my life.
GOld
May 02, 13:01My picture was used on Facebook by somebody I didn’t know. He started receiving comments of how ‘handsome’ he was and all the things that follow.fortunately for me,a friend of mine saw it and alerted everybody including me about it.
Trust me it sucks.
Carl
May 02, 13:49This resonates well, and is very correct. It’s like because we are ‘outlaws of love'(cue Adam Lambert)- some feel like being rebellious which is just despicable(not that the in-laws of love aren’t just as dumb. The catfish is too real). #FixItJesus.
wytem
May 02, 16:38Identity theft is evil….. all shades of it!
OAN has anyone noticed that plenty manjam profiles with Asaba have their (or is it other peoples’) full faces as profile pix? Now Sinnex has increased my fears about Asaba ppl when he said….A went to Asaba to physically confront B! The impostor is in Asaba abi?
Hmm make una dey very wary when pptential hookups invite una to Asaba ooo. Na my own be dat..
.
Gad
May 03, 14:32“Gad,pls upload your picture”. im sure you now understand my actions.