Can you recognize the girl in the picture?
She´s Violette, right?
This friendly little bookworm who loves tea, cats and sometimes might be a bit hypocondriac.
That´s the girl, the original one.
If you know her well enough then you are already conscious of her limitated tolerance to deal with strangers on the net, plus she´s not a big fan of huge social networks.
Alright, that´s in theory.
All of a sudden, she has developed a brand new personality (maybe as a consequence of a spider bite, who knows!) and now is playing to open dozens of online profiles all through the web.
Yes, you guessed: I´ve been impersonated.
I know what you´re about to say.
Being impersonated is totally cool, indeed it is the mark of the social success. And normally I wouldn´t be so upset, but the thing is that this person not only stole tons of pictures from this blog (among them these, these, or these) but also used my nickname, real age, current location, profession and real name to found a net of lies in order to flirt with the first candid person unlucky enough to cross her path (it looks like she is a woman, and even more scary, one of my FB contacts).
And that´s exactly what happened: one of her victims encountered this site and after some logical questions told me all the story and showed me some important information, such as the fake profiles created by this person.
The worst part (if you ignore my real name and basic information merrily given away) is that she even stole pictures of my beloved ones, including portraits like this, or (OH, God!) pictures of me with my thirteen years old sister.
And you know what, people?
For me that´s the limit!
I have serious suspects about the identity of this hussy girl, plus a couple of hackers who can work totally free for me and the serious determination to smash this person with an oficial complaint in the police.
So I beg you to forgive me if, for a while, my pictures contain an awful watermark.
Oh! And if one day I start to make silly posts about, I don´t know, low fat recipes, or cheap trips to Miami, or my last pair of Manolos, well, you may be reading the fake Violette here.
That's terrible, I can't believe that that has happened to you! I've been debating adding watermarks to my blog for ages and now I think it would be a good idea to add them. I hope that the police sort it out for you as soon as possible! It's hard to believe that somebody would do that to someone, very disturbing!
ResponderEliminarI was thinking a lot about watermarks before this happened too, and the thing is that I don´t really like them. I think a bad watermark can totally ruin a good picture, so hating to add them is an extra gift this persona has given to me...
EliminarThat's awful! I'm sorry you are having to deal with this, I really hope you can get this person in a lot of trouble! Stealing peoples identities is against the law and she can be prosecuted! All I have to say it she must be very unhappy with her own life to stoop that low! I have to say though, I do like your watermark and I would definitely suggest using it from now on, just on the off chance that anyone else tries to claim your pictures as their own! I wish you luck in tracking this person down! ♥
ResponderEliminarI totally agree with your impressions: if you need to pretend to be a different person, there´s something simply not running well in your own life. Ans thank you for the good wishes darling, I hope I can haunt this criminal.
EliminarI am sorry to hear what happened dear! That sounds very creepy!
ResponderEliminarIt feels very creepy, indeed. Even more if you consider that I have probably spoken to this person at some point of my life.
EliminarOh dear. That is absolutely horrible. Yes! Gather your hacker friends and destroy!
ResponderEliminarI'm too lazy to fix a watermark, or working more with the graphics, sadly. But haven't been robbed of my photos yet (as far as I know).
Well, experience has showed me that people can surprise you in a bad way, so I recommend to use the tools existing online for checking the net in search of counterfeit.
EliminarThats horrible! :/ I hope you can get rid of that person in some way.
ResponderEliminarTruly awful. I am sure I´´l be able to solve this issue soon, I try to keep a positive attitude towards it :)
EliminarThat is definitely creepy. Especially using your real name and posting pictures of your loved ones. :o(
ResponderEliminarThis person does not clearly understand where are the limits (both for legacy and common sense), so I might teach her...
EliminarI had someone make a fake Bebo account in my name, probably someone who knew me at school... I can understand how pissed off you are. Here, it is only illegal to impersonate for fraudulent purposes, so I couldn't go to the police about it.
ResponderEliminarIt is against the law for any reason here, so I can´t really understand how can somebody ignore it. I mean, it looks like some people think that laws are just not for them and that makes me really mad.
EliminarI know stuff like this happens online but it's always so disappointing to read about it. People can be so horrible, they make the whole species look bad. I'm so sorry this happened to you, and truly hope you can pin down the person and hold her accountable.
ResponderEliminarI started watermarking my photos when an online goth mag used one without my permission and didn't even give me credit. Another blogger saw it and brought it to my attention. They were nice about it when I contacted them, and compensated by giving me a shout-out in their next issue. But it was still angering, and in this case it wasn't even malicious. I can't imagine how furious I would be if it was meant to be fraudulent!
One of the worst things is that, as you said, the make humankind to look awful, and a consequence, this whole thing made me feel a misanthropist for a couple of days. Thankfuly, I am dealing better with it.
EliminarAnd really sorry to hear you had problemas too. It looks like some people beloeve they are invincible on internet...