A young beauty technician who had recently moved to the Blue Mountains West of Sydney in 2019 liked what she saw of the profile of “Stelios” on a Tinder profile and initiated contact with him. His responses sparked her interest as he seemed to understand her and an online relationship developed that betrayed everything it promised.
“Stelios” presented himself to Torrie Marshall as a Greek business consultant who lived in Sydney, and over time she came to realise that he was actually “ghosting” “catphishing” and manipulating her.
For starters the picture that he sent of himself showed a handsome, successful Greek man. In reality the picture he used was of popular Greek singer Konstantinos Argiros who had no knowledge of the catphishing scam.
The relationship which developed over the telephone suggested a man who shared her values and sense of humour. Ms Marshall told news.com: “We just connected on this emotional connection that I hadn’t really felt with a lot of guys my age.”
Once the connection was made on Tinder “Stelios” continued the communications through Facebook Messenger but he told Ms Marshall that he could not add her as a friend on Facebook. He also put pressure that they telephone and text each other through Kik Messenger, an app that does not need a user’s telephone number for registration purposes. She agreed to only talk on voice calls.
Ms Marshall said that she now noted some inconsistencies in the story he was weaving such as the fact that they would often talk until 4am – which was consistent with someone claiming to be a successful businessman.
She said her work kept her from meeting “Stelios” until the day she said she was coming to Sydney and would like to see him.
“I was travelling through Sydney and I asked him if he just wanted to catch up and get a drink or whatever,” she said. “He got very defensive about it and said he was busy with work and he can’t just drop everything to have a drink with me, which I found kind of weird.”
He also began asking for intimate pictures of herself and threatened to end the relationship if she did not do so.
“I didn’t want to lose him so I just did it, but afterwards I just felt so disgusting that I had done that [as] I didn’t want to do it.”
After six months, he announced that he would be coming to see her at her home in the Blue Mountains but said he wanted her to do a explicit video and dress up for him. Although she did not want to do it, she went ahead to appease him and sent the final product to him.
When she did so “Stelios” cut off all contact with her and deactivated his Facebook account.
His sudden withdrawal devastated Ms Marshall and with the help of a friend they carried out reverse image search of the photos of “Stelios” and in the process discovered many similar profiles using the same names and the picture of Greek singer Konstantinos Argiros.
Ms Marshall said she sought psychological help once she realised that she had been “ghosted” and cat-phished. She also finds it hard to date or trust people and who they say they are online.
She also contacted a woman who “Stelios” had claimed was an ex-girlfriend and found that she had been manipulated in a similar manner.
“I let her know that he was using her photos. She had no idea,” Ms Marshall said.
Ms Marshall will be appearing on SBS Insight to tell her story at 8.30pm on Tuesday and on SBS On Demand.
