My photos were stolen and used to catfish men – a scammer made thousands and then sent a stranger to my house for a date
AT nearly 11 pm last Friday night, a man turned up in the driveway of 90 Day Fiancé star Stephanie Matto, ready to take her on a date.
But though he claimed to have flown to Connecticut for plans they’d made online and spent thousands of dollars on gifts for her, Matto had never talked to the man in her life.
With romance scammers, most people think of the duped party who fell in love — and maybe handed over their cash — as the only victim.
But when those scammers use photos of real people to do their catfishing, the “face” of the operation becomes a victim, too.
That’s how Matto, 33, found herself hiding in a closet on January 26, fearfully calling 911 about a strange man on her property.
Matto is “no stranger to like weirdos stalking me,” having starred in several seasons of various 90 Day Fiancé franchise shows and racked up 295,000 followers on Instagram.
In fact, she told The U.S. Sun, she’d previously needed help from local police to deal with a stalker.
But what happened last week has her nervous about dangers she hadn’t even considered.
“It was around 10:30, 11 pm at night, and I get woken up because my dogs start growling, and I also hear some commotion outside of my house,” she said.
A car was parked in front, which was strange because Matto lives on a long, private driveway — in other words, there was no reason for someone to be there if they weren’t coming to see her.
When the car didn’t leave and a man she believes to be in his 50s or 60s stepped out, Matto started to panic.
“I go into my closet I call 911 and I just wait for the cops to arrive,” she said.
After questioning the man, an officer came to her door, flashing the stranger’s ID.
“He held up his license and said, ‘Do you know Louis?'” she recalled.
“I said, ‘No, I don’t know this person at all.’ And he’s like, ‘Well, that’s strange because he thinks that you have a date here tonight.'”
Matto was immediately in tears, worried that the stranger could be a “psycho” who “thinks in his head that he’s talking to me or something.”
The next day, she got the full story: Louis had been talking to someone on Facebook pretending to be Matto, down to posting her pictures and copying her social media captions.
Cops told her Louis had sent the catfish thousands of dollars worth of gift cards and thought he was meeting up with Matto to take her to a hotel.
She was told he is now feeling “very foolish” and “so embarrassed.”
Stunned, Matto clicked over to Facebook and found “so many fake profiles” with her name and photos.
This guy just flew across the country and got scammed out of thousands of dollars. Is he going to take out his anger on me even though I’m a victim too?
Stephanie Matto
“Seeing the sheer amount of catfish accounts for me was so scary,” she said, adding that the fakes were “super convincing.”
She eventually found the one that Louis had been commenting on.
“And I go into the profile and the likes [on each post] and I see all these, like, Nigerian pastors… I’m like, yeah, clearly a Nigerian scammer.”
But the scariest part was the lengths this catfish went, looking up Matto’s actual home address to give it to one of their victims.
“I don’t know what the end goal is, because essentially by the guy showing up, the jig is up,” she said.
“And what does that tell me? Can they do this again? And can they do this with somebody who maybe will get angry at me?
“I don’t know what’s going through these people’s heads.
“This guy just flew across the country and got scammed out of thousands of dollars. Is he going to take out his anger on me even though I’m a victim too?”
Police told Matto the case would be sent to the cybercrime division and advised her to report the catfish accounts to Facebook.
Days later, she’s frustrated that they’re still up and is worried more catfish victims will show up at her house.
Facebook has not returned The U.S. Sun’s request for comment.
“It’s uncomfortable for me, as a woman, that there is a strange man coming to my house at 11 o’clock at night expecting that he’s gonna have sex with me,” she said.
“I am so terrified that the night it happened, I went online and I registered for my pistol permit.”
She’s now looking into removing her address from the internet and has cops patrolling her street.
And though she feels bad for Louis, she’s also afraid.
“I’m still scared of him because I don’t know who he is,” she said.
“They told me that in his statement, he acknowledged that it wasn’t my fault.
“That was reassuring to me because maybe somebody could find a way to blame me. Like, ‘You enabled this to happen because you are a public figure and you should do more to find catfish accounts.'”
Matto sympathizes with people who fall for these scams, imagining it must be “so devastating.”
“These people really are so lonely that they will believe that a 33-year-old Instagram model is in love with them,” she said.
But she’s warning that the people whose photos are stolen can be victims, too.
“They used my name. They used my personal home address. So that endangers my life, sending strangers online my personal information,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter what platform you’re on or how you’re putting yourself out there. All it takes is one person with bad intentions to come across your page.”