Been there, done that, but thankfully, I wasn't the one lying
Tonight I was watching "20/20: Sixth Sense" on ABC and the show profiled two cases of people who put themselves out on the internet as someone else and the fallout of what happens when the deception goes too far, culminating in murder in one of the two cases.
Back in 1992, when I was newly out of college, and Usenet was the only way to go for public internet forums, I was on a group called alt.callahans and got to know several folks, all of whom all used screen names or pseudonyms. We all fibbed about our lives. Everybody does that, whether or the internet or not. However, in one case, one person had spun a hard-luck tale of chronic illness, being in hospice, etc. People did things for her because we're human, we like to help. Eventually, we found out she was lying to us, and all the stories she told us about herself were not true.
Thankfully, I didn't send her any money, just a few letters and I think a small stuffed animal, but it's been nearly twenty years, I don't really remember now.
Anyway, I learned the hard way early on that people aren't always forthcoming when on the internet. I'm just glad nothing awful happened back then. Then again, if anything bad had happened, I never heard about it. That's probably a good thing.
Back in 1992, when I was newly out of college, and Usenet was the only way to go for public internet forums, I was on a group called alt.callahans and got to know several folks, all of whom all used screen names or pseudonyms. We all fibbed about our lives. Everybody does that, whether or the internet or not. However, in one case, one person had spun a hard-luck tale of chronic illness, being in hospice, etc. People did things for her because we're human, we like to help. Eventually, we found out she was lying to us, and all the stories she told us about herself were not true.
Thankfully, I didn't send her any money, just a few letters and I think a small stuffed animal, but it's been nearly twenty years, I don't really remember now.
Anyway, I learned the hard way early on that people aren't always forthcoming when on the internet. I'm just glad nothing awful happened back then. Then again, if anything bad had happened, I never heard about it. That's probably a good thing.