I had my identity stolen by a woman in Argentina

A shady woman in Argentina has been pretending to be a Man Met fresher to catfish people online. 

Pretty Aoife’s pictures and personal info appeared on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Ask.fm.

The identity thief, who calls herself “Cristal Kluge”, even knew details about a break up with her ex-boyfriend and in jokes with school friends.

A post from the fake ‘Cristal Kluge’ account

The fake Instagram account

‘Cristal’s’ Ask fm

A few months ago 19-year-old Aoife woke up to a Whatsapp from a close friend containing a picture of a fake Facebook account using her pictures under the name “Cristal Kluge”.

All of the posts were written in Spanish and “Cristal” claimed to be located in Argentina.

Aoife tried to search for the account but it was obvious the person stealing her identity had blocked her.

Using her boyfriend’s phone, Aoife discovered loads more social media accounts using her images.

There were Ask fm, Twitter and Instagram accounts using the fake identity, all of which dated back eight months.

The most disturbing thing for Aoife is the personal content that was contained within “Cristal’s” posts, which she translated.

One post, described a break up with an ex- boyfriend and another discussed her and her school friend’s studies.

These and many other posts contained information that Aoife believes only her close friends would know.

But Aoife soon discovered that was not alone – her friend, who had sent her the original screenshot, had also been a victim of the catfishing.

She later found out that at least 10 of her other friends had all had their pictures stolen and fake accounts made using these.

Whoever was impersonating Aoife and her friends clearly knew what they were doing as all the fake profiles had been communicating with each other via social media, in order to validate their fantasy lives.

Communication between the numerous fake accounts

One of Aoife’s friend’s pictures used on a fake Instagram account

A shocked Aoife told The Tab: “It’s weird, it can happen to anyone, you wouldn’t have a clue.”

She reported all of the social media accounts that were under this fake name but only received one substandard reply from Ask.fm.

Aoife explains that she felt desperate and that no one was taking her story seriously, so she sent another email to Ask.fm appealing for their support.

It was not until she had sent photocopies of her ID to Ask.fm that they agreed to take the profile down.

After getting no reply from Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, Aoife sent a message to “Cristal Kluge” demanding to know what was going on.

She said: “Who are you and why do you keep using my pictures? Are you not happy with your own pathetic life you have to steal mine?”

She got no reply.

Aoife’s frustrated message to the identity thief

When posting from the numerous fake accounts showed no signs of stopping, Aoife and her friends decided to investigate the matter themselves.

They realised that the link between all of them was that they worked together in a club in Belfast.

Although they attempted to find a mutual friend between them all that could be behind all of this, it was impossible as they worked doing PR for the club so had a number of Facebook friends that they had never met in person.

A picture of the night club Aoife works for posted on ‘Cristal’s’ page

It seemed ridiculous to Aoife that other people who were Facebook friends with “Cristal” and the other profiles believed that they were real.

But one person couldn’t have created all of “Cristal’s” friends as the account had over 200 friends. This online identity thief could be catfishing hundreds of people using Aoife and her friend’s pictures.

One of Aoife’s friend’s picture’s used for a fake account

A couple of weeks ago, following persistent emails to Facebook, the fake account impersonating Aoife was finally taken down. But the fake accounts of her friends remain.

Speaking about the whole experience Aoife said: “It has made us feel really wary about who we share our profile with because one day there could be two of you floating about”.

Aoife has now made all of her social media accounts private but the damage has been done and whoever this person is has copies of her photos forever.