[Bluey]

Oh do tell! You can't just say that and not give something for us to think about.

Yes, me too, I am not very good at figuring those things out.
I remember one such poster here that was outed a while back, if I got the story right, what a mess it was.

[LexInVA]

Now that sounds like you are pulling our legs.
That would take being so on the crazy side as being practically non-funcional in real life, I would say.

I'm not pulling your leg or any of your other appendages. Honest. You want proof, some of her old stuff is still out there and there are a few forum threads from several years ago where people discussed her after she was outed. She also resurfaced a few years ago and harassed some poor kid which prompted the girl's parents to go looking for her on here, which led to me recounting my experiences with her after they posted about what she did.

[FlashGordon]

It happens all the time on Internet forums unfortunately. I remember there was a very odd user on the Eventing forum who claimed she was a student of Lainey Ashker, wheelchair bound due to a bunch of illnesses, managed to compete in horse shows, and a bunch of other things. All were pretty easy to punch holes in but the repeated efforts and the fanaticism with which she tried to push her story and "facts" were really disturbing.

Was that the lady who was typing with a pencil in her mouth? Or was that someone else?

There are people who you can raise an eyebrow at right away, and then other people who apparently are pretty great liars (like the woman on the mommy forum I mentioned) and they go on for months or years faking. Then there are also people who project and image that maybe isn't completely fake, but not at all reality either.

The internet is a weird place. I was naive in always thinking that people are well intentioned and truthful, but the past few years I've learned that is definitely not always the case.

[LexInVA]

I don't remember anything about a pencil. I just remember her supposed real name was Cassie (something Polish sounding), she lived in Canada, and she was on a few other forums aside from this one. She said Lainey was her hero, then she claimed that she was a student of hers, and said she would one day be big and famous once she got out of her wheelchair that she was in due to many illnesses and injuries.

[FlashGordon]

Ah ok... pencil lady was someone else then... I think her SN started with a V.... she posted some old, old pics, no idea if they were actually hers. Claimed she was a BNT, then also claimed she was completely debilitated... disappeared, then popped back up on the Giveaways for awhile trolling for horses.

You can't really trust anyone or anything you can't easily corroborate somehow in real life. I am much more skeptical of COTHers than I used to be. We have a pretty strong local faction that represents here, so I find myself interacting more online with people I already know IRL. Which is weird, since I see those people regularly anyway, but it is somehow safer than trusting peeps I don't know, if that makes any sense!

[Bluey]

I agree, hard to tell who is who.
I trusted someone to be who he said he was, then turned out to be a stalker, that with second and third alters tried to befriend me to fish for more personal information and cause more trouble.
Boy, did I learn my lesson, now I don't trust most anyone on PMs.
You really never know who they are or if they are after something and with him around, if it is one more of his incarnations.

[Beentheredonethat]

I'm sure there are quite a few on here. One of the ones I know personally was banned, and while she seemed legit at first, I found out that almost everyone eventually smelled something fishy and started calling her on it. The trouble with lying is you can't remember what you said. But, soulless people can feel like a bigshot for awhile.

[LexInVA]

Yeah, I remember a certain poster who had her own entourage of supporters who was very much prone to lies and making stuff up about herself, then she got herself banned by conversing with her alts.

[LexInVA]

I agree, hard to tell who is who.
I trusted someone to be who he said he was, then turned out to be a stalker, that with second and third alters tried to befriend me to fish for more personal information and cause more trouble.
Boy, did I learn my lesson, now I don't trust most anyone on PMs.
You really never know who they are or if they are after something and with him around, if it is one more of his incarnations.

I had a similar experience with that person I mentioned in my lengthy post. She did the same to a lot of others.

[LexInVA]

Now that sounds like you are pulling our legs.
That would take being so on the crazy side as being practically non-funcional in real life, I would say.

Here's a short and sweet thread on HorseCity about her pretending to own someone else's horse.

[darkmoonlady]

You should see the pregnancy blogs, they're full of people like this. My best friend joined a pregnancy forum when she got pregnant some years ago. You registered and blogged with other women who were pregnant around the same time you were, so you could follow each others progress etc. Out of the number of women some time during the course of her pregnancy they discovered at least three women who were faking it all. I guess in that case it's wishful thinking etc, and sad but at least two of these women faked miscarriages more than once (based on IP addresses etc) and just changed ID's and came back and re registered. The admins noticed some irregularities and actually contacted one woman. It happens a lot.

[Bluey]

Here's a short and sweet thread on HorseCity about her pretending to own someone else's horse.

Oh, I did believe you, was commenting on how far out that sounded.
Stealing pictures to pass them as her horse and a different sex at that? Goofy.

What happened to HC, looks like a different place now.
Guess they had upgrades also?

[LexInVA]

God, don't get me started on that. As far as women go, nothing creeps me out more than women who are child obsessed or who are fascinated endlessly by children to the point where they do weird stuff like that. It's disturbing that some women want to be mothers so much that they will fake pregnancy, sleep with as many men as possible to get pregnant, or obsess over someone else's child.

[nasalberry]

There's a current poster here who seems to qualify, even.

There is at least one, yes.

[nasalberry]

There is at least one, yes.

... Who is apparently still stalking me with yet another thumbs down.
That's what happens when one can't get a life, I guess.

[Bluey]

... Who is apparently still stalking me with yet another thumbs down.
That's what happens when one can't get a life, I guess.

I refuse to acknowledge the thumbing feature, have not used it, don't care either way for it.
If it makes some happy to use it, I would not keep them from it, but it seems useless for normal, sensible discourse.

Just as some feel about smileys, which I make plenty use of, knowing that some don't like them.

[Sonesta]

It is a strange phenomenon, isn't it. Goes to show that you must carefully check out anyone you think you may deal with in real life.

On another BB I frequent, a couple years ago there was a regular poster there who was long established on the board as a GP rider/trainer who gave lots of online training advice and was very active on the board. She claimed she was going to have to sell her FEI horse for some reason that I no longer recall and was offering it at a fire sale price. I had a client looking for a schoolmaster type so I contacted her via PM to get more info.

(BTW, I am NOT an FEI rider or trainer and my client is not either, but she wanted to get a schoolmaster type to try and move up with our farm's FEI trainer, Andrea)

I got this huge long story about the horse and his fabulous show experience and scores in the BIG shows back east and in the state she was now living (New Mexico or Arizona I think) and we exchanged quite a lot of emails. I was just about ready to fly down with my client when I decided to do some research.

I asked for the name under which the horse showed and HER name so I could check scores and she wrote back some weird crap about being afraid to give out that info because of her former boyfriend. She claimed to have escaped from a crazy boyfriend by moving from the heart of BNT area in (I think) Virginia to the boonies. I'm thinking - Ok, how are you expecting to show me a horse if I don't know your name and where you are located.

Apparently she wanted me to take her word for it and buy the horse sight unseen.

I got suspicious and did some digging. On that other BB, I read all her other posts until I found a link to her website (she was supposed to also be some sort of artist). On that site in her "About Me" page, she mentions how she is some BNT that does dressage clinics all over the country and acts as agent for the selling of FEI horses for big name riders all over the country.

Because her name was listed and her city, I did a Centerline Scores search and found only a couple of shows several years before at Training/First Level with pitiful scores - all local and nothing back east. I then called the local Dressage Society Secretary to find out more. Found out that the secretary knew who she was and that she was a total nobody wannabe who could barely ride and hadn't shown in years, but that would advertise as a riding instructor to total newbies without a clue. And I don't remember the exact details about the horse she was trying to sell me, but the secretary said the horse was not even a training level horse.

I didn't out her on that BB but I did tell her that if she ever again made a post there about her fake riding skills or experience or anything else that pretended she was some BNT, that I WOULD ought her. To date, she now limits her posts there to mundane non-horse related stuff.

Now, this was someone who had posted so long on that BB as a BNT trainer/rider/clinician that everyone had totally accepted her story as such and she might actually have been able to fool someone into buying that horse sight unseen on the basis of this online fake persona.

CRAZY!