I decoded a fake ad on Backpage.

[RSully94]

http://la.backpage.com/MaleEscorts/dan-here-upscale-services-nothing-but-the-best/49709121

 

I had a feeling it was a fake ad, because he said "pictures were recent" and went to the trouble of putting the name Dan on all the photos. I did a google image search on the pics, and I found the name of the guy - Dan Harding. He has an Instagram, a Youtube Channel and a twitter. The twitter puts him in England and if you watch any of his Vlogs on Youtube, he has a distinct British accent. So I decided to call the guy's number in the ad, to see what this guy's voice would sound like. Just as I suspected, it wasn't the Dan Harding with a british accent, but rather a phony with a very obvious AMERICAN accent.

 

I actually emailed Dan's business booking telling him about the phony ad impersonating him and I then reported the ad to hopefully help get it taken down.

[Blade9]

Congratulations and thank you for posting.

 

I have got to learn the Google image search.

 

B

[+ DickyF]

Great job! I've done similar. In one case I could see the phony took the pics from sleepyboy and trimmed off the words "sleepyboy.com" from the bottom.

 

Now only 500M to go! :-)

 

It would be cool if there were an app that could give a "real/phony" score to the ads.

[gallahadesquire]

Congratulations and thank you for posting.

 

I have got to learn the Google image search.

 

B

 

Blade9:

 

Google image search is pretty easy. I think there's a post somewhere on the Board.

 

Simply:

 

Open two windows. On one, have the page with the photo in question. On the other, go to image.google.com

"Click" and "Drag" the photo into the google search box on image.google.com

 

You'll get a set of responses, which are web pages which contain the photo.

 

Best of luck.

[RacerXLA]

Way to go! It's nice to weed out scammers. There are a few on backpage LA that tempt me but I haven't taken the plunge yet. Soon I might

[Tonyko]

Yes! (Thank you Catfish the TV show where I learned to image search it's so simple) I've found a few scammers, more on Rmen than RB, ALSO an FYI, any software you use to open photos on your laptop usually has the ability to "flip" the image, ala a mirror. If nothing pops up in an image search I sometimes try it flipped, and PRESTO they sometimes pop up. (fakers can do it right on their phones too) I think they KNOW we're getting more savy and image search paramaters can be fooled if you reverse the shot. PS I've noticed MANY are stolen from GWIP site (guys with IPhones) since they're all realistic and oft have multiple shots of ea guy :0

[jgoo]

Blade9:

 

Google image search is pretty easy. I think there's a post somewhere on the Board.

 

Simply:

 

Open two windows. On one, have the page with the photo in question. On the other, go to image.google.com

"Click" and "Drag" the photo into the google search box on image.google.com

 

You'll get a set of responses, which are web pages which contain the photo.

 

Best of luck.

 

And it is even easier if you are using Chrome browser. Simply right click on the image and select "Search Google for this image"