Catfish Phone Number: Find Out Who Is Really Calling You

Cindy Ellis - February 24, 2024

Catfishing continues to be popular online. It is surprisingly easy to create fake accounts to trick people for money, love, friendship, or bullying. In the past, unless you spent hours digging or visited the person, it was nearly impossible to determine if someone was catfishing you. Fortunately, there are some new tools you can add to your verification toolbox to better protect yourself from catfishing.

Tools like our reverse phone number lookup make it a breeze to determine the real identity of the person you’re speaking with. Read on to learn about how to discover a catfish with Information.com.

What Is a Catfish?

Catfishing has been around for decades. In the past, it was used on social media platforms like Myspace and Facebook to trick people into love and friendship. People also used to create fake accounts to bully people and cause other problems. That said, catfishing is a whole different animal today.

Now, it’s a serious type of fraud that includes using someone’s images, spoofing phone numbers, and much more. Whenever you think you’re speaking with a catfish, it’s important to verify their identity and contact the authorities if they’re not who they claim to be.

What Is Catfishing Used For?

Unfortunately, catfishing is used for many things. It’s not just about fooling someone if you’re not good-looking, like in the popular Catfish: The TV Show. It’s also used for scamming people out of money or other illegal activities.

Today, catfishing is used for the following scams:

• Misleading victims and lying about one’s identity online to form a relationship
• Committing financial fraud by scamming people out of money
• To fit in with other people or groups you wouldn’t otherwise join
• Gaining someone’s trust to gain access to sensitive information

Catfishing can also be used for many other things, especially phone scams, where people pretend to be a part of a company to steal someone’s money or personal details.

How to Spot a Catfish’s Phone Number

To discover a Catfish’s phone number, you need to follow a few quick steps. While it may seem complicated at first, don’t worry; the whole process shouldn’t take longer than a few minutes. Once you discover their phone number, you can start to find more details about it and even verify a Catfish’s identity.

1. Get the Person’s Phone Number

Sometimes, this is as easy as checking your caller ID; sometimes this takes some digging. However you do this, we encourage doing so legally and ethically. Once obtained, move on to step 2.

2. Run a Phone Number Search

Once you have their phone number, you can run it through our phone number search tool. Check to see if it reveals anything that raises some questions. For example, if you run the search and the phone number belongs to a different name, you may be dealing with a catfish.

3. Confront or Ignore Your Catfish

Someone might be catfishing you for a plethora of reasons, therefore, it’s a good idea to call them out on it or ignore them depending on the type of scam that they’re running. If the scam is serious, you can also report them to the authorities. Plus, confronting them can turn them off to the idea of scamming or catfishing someone else.

Stop Catfishes Dead in Their Tracks

Catfishing is no joke. While you think you’re talking to someone you know, they could be someone totally different and lie to you the whole time. It used to be hard to verify this information without visiting them in person, but tools like our reverse phone lookup have made it easier to verify someone’s identity. Just enter any suspected phone numbers into our tool, and we can help you put an end to catfishing.