Horror Stories - 6 Most Disturbing TRUE Facebook Horror Stories That Turned Social Media Into a Nightmare

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Starting point is 00:00:33 When I have a crush on a guy, no one knows. Be careful. I wish Nicky's loving more than anyone in the entire world. Who you wish for. Obsession is 96% fresh on rotten tomatoes. I love you so, so, so, so much. It's blood-soaked nightmare fuel. What kind of supposed you put on her?

Starting point is 00:00:53 You have been warned. Obsession, we did R. Under 1790M without parent. Only in theaters May 15th, with special engagements in Dilby. Hello everyone and welcome back to horror stories. I know many of you use these episodes to fall asleep so before you drift off, I'd love it if you could leave a comment letting me know where you're listening from around the world. Also, don't forget to like and subscribe if you're enjoying the episodes. Story 1

Starting point is 00:01:28 When I was in my second to last year of high school, my parents dropped the news on me that my dad had accepted a job on the other side of the country. I didn't really have a choice. Before I knew it, I was stuffing my things into boxes and leaving behind the only house and the only friends I had ever had. Moving that late in high school was brutal. At the new school, everyone already had their group and their routines, and I showed up halfway through the year with no idea how to fit in. I wasn't the type to walk up to strangers and introduce myself. So most days I kept my head down, did my work, and come. counted the minutes until I could go back home. What made it worse was how connected everyone seemed to be with each other. At lunchtime, the cafeteria buzzed with laughter and conversations while I sat alone,

Starting point is 00:02:20 scrolling on my phone and trying not to stand out. It wasn't that I didn't want friends. I just didn't know how to take that first step. Back home, I had people. Here I was a ghost. Around that time, Facebook was starting to replace MySpace. So I made an account. At first I only used it to stay in touch with my old friends.

Starting point is 00:02:43 Seeing familiar names and faces pop up in my feed helped me feel like I hadn't lost everything, even though the time difference made it harder to talk in real time. One afternoon I got a friend request from someone named David. I remembered him right away. Back in my old town, he wasn't part of my close circle, but he would sometimes tag along because he was friends with Jerry. David had always been quiet, usually sitting on the edge of the group, chiming in here and there,

Starting point is 00:03:11 but never really becoming part of it. To us, he was more like Jerry's tag-along, nothing more. That's why when I saw his name, I hesitated. It didn't make sense that he'd want to connect now if we had barely talked before, but loneliness makes you overlook things. I clicked except. At first, his profile looked almost empty. A few points. Posts, barely any photos, very few friends. I didn't think much of it because Facebook was still new. Over time, though, it grew. He added more people, updated his profile, and before long it looked like a normal account. We started talking through messages, and little by little, it became something I really looked forward to. He told me he had just started college and that it was hard for him to meet people.

Starting point is 00:04:03 I admitted how isolated I felt at my new school. That common ground made everything easier, and soon we were sharing details of our daily lives. He complained about his job delivering pizzas or talked about the soccer games he played on the weekends. I told him about my clumsy attempts to navigate an unfamiliar high school. What really hooked me was how much attention he paid. If I mentioned I had a test,

Starting point is 00:04:30 he'd message me afterward to ask how it went. If he sensed I was feeling down, he'd pressed me to tell him what was wrong. When it came time to apply to college, he even helped me figure out how to register for the SAT and walk me through scholarship applications. One time he covered one of my application fees with a prepaid visa card saying it was no big deal. For a kid who felt invisible most of the time, that kind of support meant the world. Eventually, we exchanged numbers. And from then on, we were texting non-stop.

Starting point is 00:05:06 He knew things about me that not even some of my real-life friends knew, and I confided parts of myself in him that I rarely shared. He also confessed things to me that he had failed out of college and hadn't told anyone but me. He was ashamed and didn't want to be seen as a failure. Hearing that made me feel like our friendship was genuine. By the time my family planned a trip back to my old town, I had known David for a couple of years. I told him I wanted us to meet up.

Starting point is 00:05:37 That was when everything changed. Instead of being excited, he grew distant. He claimed the photos he posted were heavily edited and that I'd be disappointed if I saw him in person. I told him I didn't care about that, but he started picking fights. He threw out hurtful things. Personal details I had confided in him were used against me in a cruel way.

Starting point is 00:06:01 I felt hurt and confused, so I cut off contact before the trip. When I got there, I ended up seeing him anyway. A group of us met up at a friend's house, and there he was, David in the flesh. And the truth is, he looked exactly like he did in his photos. No filters, no lies. But he acted like he barely knew me. He was polite, distant, almost cold. When I tried to bring up our conversations, he brushed it off, insisting he didn't even use Facebook.

Starting point is 00:06:36 He said he'd had my space years ago, but then moved on to Tumblr and never went back. I thought he was lying until we decided to test it. We left his phone on the table. I sent a message to the number I had been texting for years. His phone didn't buzz, but mine did. Almost immediately, the fake David wrote back. That was the moment everything shattered. The fake account had been built with surgical precision.

Starting point is 00:07:05 Old photos pulled from his MySpace, more recent ones taken from his Tumblr. Some weren't even online. They were pictures from his soccer matches clearly taken by someone sitting in the stands. He even recognized his old dog in a profile picture, the same dog that had died years earlier. Whoever was behind it wasn't just pretending to be. him. They had been studying him, watching him, following his life closely enough to copy it in detail. We confronted the fake account through messages, but there was no response. Not long after, the profile disappeared completely. I thought it ended there. Until a few months later, my mom

Starting point is 00:07:48 called me. She asked why I had opened a second Facebook account using her first name. I hadn't. She showed me the page. It had my photos. Some so old I barely remembered them. But none of my real posts. Whoever made it had pieced together a collage of bits of me. Just like they had done with David. I reported it and it vanished.

Starting point is 00:08:14 But I was left wondering if the same person behind the fake David account had now set their sights on me. It's a nauseating thought to know that someone can put on your face online, carry-on conversation. under your name and manipulate strangers the same way I was manipulated. To this day, I still don't know who it was, what they wanted, or if they ever stopped. And that uncertainty lingers years later. Story two. When my fiancé and I finally got a house in the country, I thought the biggest change was going to be the space. We had always lived in apartments, so having a yard was unfamiliar territory.

Starting point is 00:08:59 At first it was exciting, like a milestone, but the novelty faded when we realized someone had to take care of the lawn. Neither of us owned a lawnmower, and I wasn't about to spend several hundred dollars on one, especially since we weren't planning on staying in this house forever. We tried hiring a co-worker of my fiancés, but paying $65 every two weeks started to strain the budget. I got the idea to look through Facebook classifieds to see if anyone nearby offered yard maintenance for a lower price. That's where I found Charles. His ad said he ran a reputable business and was looking for more yards to take on.

Starting point is 00:09:40 It sounded straightforward, so I messaged him. At first, nothing seemed strange. He asked for the address so he could stop by and give me an estimate. I didn't think twice. A couple of hours later, he texted me. Wow, honey, you have a huge porch. That rubbed me the wrong way. It wasn't the kind of comment you expect from a professional, but I let it slide.

Starting point is 00:10:06 I assumed maybe he was just overly friendly and went ahead with scheduling him to mow. I told him when I'd be available, but he said it didn't matter whether I was home or not. We settled on Wednesday. That Wednesday, he messaged me early asking if I was home. I replied that I wasn't, that I wouldn't be back. until after 8 p.m. A few hours later, another message, are you home yet? I repeated the same thing. I told him I'd be out all day. He replied that he'd blown a tire so he'd have to reschedule. The next morning same pattern. Are you going to be home today? I said no. A little later.

Starting point is 00:10:49 Hey, are you home now? It started to feel less like scheduling and more like he was trying to tracked my whereabouts. Then he sent, please don't be mad at me, honey. My truck broke down. I pushed it back again and told him Friday would be better. Friday came, which happened to be my day off, but I left the house early so I wouldn't have to see him. He texted me again. You're off today, right? I said yes, but added that I wasn't home. He kept pressing, asking what time I'd be back. Later, he claimed that his equipment had fallen off the truck and broken, so he wouldn't be able to come after all. At that point, I decided I'd had enough.

Starting point is 00:11:36 I told him I would find someone else. The next day I got off a long shift at work and checked my phone. I had several messages from Charles saying he had mowed my lawn and needed to come back so I could pay him. I was suspicious because he no longer had permission to be there, but I offered to send the money through cash app. He got upset. He said he needed me to hand him the cash in person. The way he phrased it made me nervous, like he expected me to show up while he was waiting there. I didn't want to risk it, so I asked a friend to drive behind me on the way home. Luckily, Charles wasn't there, and the lawn was in fact moat so I paid him electronically and hoped that would be the end of it. Two months went by without any issues. Then one afternoon as I was driving to class, I was on the phone with my fiancé when he said he had to hang up because someone was walking up our driveway.

Starting point is 00:12:31 He thought it was just some guy promoting a service, nothing out of the ordinary. But when I got home that night, there was a business card on the counter. The name printed on it was Charles. I called my fiancé at work and asked him to tell me exactly how the interaction had gone. He said Charles seemed surprised to see him there and asked a lot of questions about who lived in the house. He offered to mow the lawn again, fix the porch, holloway scrap metal, and even asked if we had any problems with bats or pests. Something I had only mentioned once in a Facebook post. That chilled me, because there was no way he could have known that.

Starting point is 00:13:13 What stuck with my fiancé the most was how focused Charles was on our dog. From inside the house, Max barked and Charles started asking repeatedly, was he big? Did he go out in the yard a lot? Was he an indoor dog? Was he friendly? My fiancé thought maybe he was just nervous around dogs. But the more he asked, the more it sounded like he was trying to figure out whether the dog would be a problem. As the conversation went on, Charles kept circling back to who lived there, how long we'd been in the house, and whether my fiancé was usually home. He just wouldn't let it go. Eventually, Mike asked him if he thought we were the previous owners, since he was acting like he knew the place.

Starting point is 00:13:58 Charles denied it. He said he was just promoting his business around the neighborhood. But when Mike watched him leave, he noticed that Charles didn't stop at any other house. He pulled out onto the main road and drove straight away. What disturbed me most was that that day I had taken my fiancé's car to work. My car was parked in the driveway. From the outside, it would have looked like I was home alone. I didn't call the police, partly because I was afraid they'd think I was overreacting.

Starting point is 00:14:28 But I haven't stopped thinking about it since, because everything, the timing and the questions he asked felt calculated. It hasn't even been a week, and I still find myself peeking out the windows, half expecting to see his truck parked at the end of the driveway. Story 3. Most of the people I've met while studying abroad have been kind, helpful, or at the very least, respectful but there's one experience that still sticks with me and it began a little over two years ago not long after I moved to South Korea for university at that time I was getting used to everything new classes new city new people and part of that meant dealing with a bunch of random friend requests online as

Starting point is 00:15:19 foreign students here it happens to us constantly usually from locals who say they just want to practice English or meet international friends One of those requests came from a guy who called himself Nico. He had tattoos, piercings, and photos that gave him a kind of rebellious vibe. In his bio he said he was Japanese, that he had spent some time in Canada and that he was now studying at the same university as me. Since we had mutual friends, I didn't overthink it and decided to accept him. At first he was polite enough, sending casual messages and dropping hints about meeting up sometime.

Starting point is 00:15:57 but I kept turning those invitations down. Things, however, escalated pretty quickly. His messages became pushy, almost confrontational. Like every reply I gave had to be twisted into some kind of argument. He asked me if I had a boyfriend and when I told him I didn't, he immediately suggested that we should date. I made it clear I wasn't interested and that should have been the end of it. Instead, he lost his temper and started throwing insult.

Starting point is 00:16:27 mixed with graphic and threatening comments that made me block him on the spot. When I mentioned it to a friend, she knew exactly who I was talking about. It turns out Nico had been harassing other girls in the same way, with the same script. Friend request, fake charm, and if things didn't go the way he wanted, pressure and hostility. One girl even admitted she had met up with him once, only to find out he didn't actually study at our university. He lived more than an hour away and would show up on campus just to hang around and meet foreign girls. Even the details he gave about where he was from were inconsistent. He told her he was American.

Starting point is 00:17:09 He told me he was Japanese, and he probably told others something different. For a while I let it go. I had him blocked. I hadn't seen him in person, and I figured he'd simply move on to someone else. But then another message arrived from a different account. This time he claimed he had seen me at school that day. That threw me off because it made me realize he might actually be watching me in person. I blocked that account too, but more kept appearing over and over again.

Starting point is 00:17:41 The tone got nastier. Some of the things he wrote didn't even make sense. Like insisting he'd seen me in the library all afternoon when I have literally never studied there. He insulted me about my glasses, even though I rarely wear them outside. my apartment. It was as if he were probing, trying to get under my skin in any way he could. The breaking point came one afternoon after class. I stopped by the campus convenience store to buy a drink, open the refrigerator door, and when I closed it, he was right there, silent, staring straight at me. I had never seen him face to face before, but I knew immediately who he

Starting point is 00:18:23 was. I panicked, dropped the bottle, and walked straight out. I didn't even go home because I didn't want him to know where I lived. Instead, I circled back and stayed inside the university near groups of people until a friend came to get me. After that, I would occasionally see him hanging around campus, standing near the exits when crowds of people were leaving. His eyes fixed on me every time I walked past. I made sure to always walk with friends. And eventually, the messages stopped. The last time he wrote to me was about a year ago from yet another new account, saying that he had changed and that it had all been a joke. I didn't reply. I just blocked him and moved on. Even now, I still think about how easily things could have gone further if I hadn't

Starting point is 00:19:12 listened to my instincts that day in the store, or if I had let him find out where I lived. Maybe things would have been much worse. Story 4 When I was about 13 or 14 years old, I finally convinced my mom to let me open a Facebook account. I felt like I had stepped into a completely new world. Suddenly I could reconnect with people I hadn't seen in years and maybe keep up with the boy I had a huge crush on who had moved away from my street.

Starting point is 00:19:48 I wasn't expecting much, but one afternoon his name appeared in my friend requests. and I couldn't believe it. My heart raced as I hit, except, thinking it was almost a miracle to be able to talk to him again. At first, the conversations were totally normal. He asked me about school.

Starting point is 00:20:07 We shared scattered memories from when we were neighbors. Nothing that really stood out. But one night, everything took a turn I never could have imagined. The person on the other side of the screen started saying he wasn't the boy I knew. He claimed he had hacked the account and that he knew a lot of things about me. Even details I had never posted online, like my full name in the place where I used to live. I froze in front of the desk, staring at the screen, not knowing whether to take it as a joke or to panic. I tried to tell myself it might be a prank.

Starting point is 00:20:43 Maybe someone was just messing with me. But then he sent a photo. The image was blurry and badly lit, but there was no doubt. It was an older man, maybe in his 40s or 50s, thin and looking like he hadn't slept in days. In that moment, I understood this was no joke. I blocked the account immediately, hoping that would be the end of it, and tried to distract myself by checking other things on my profile. Less than an hour later, my phone rang.

Starting point is 00:21:14 Unknown number. My hands were shaking as I answered, and it was him, the same voice from the messages. calm but with a clear sense that he was watching everything I did online. He said he knew more than I thought and that he wanted to talk. I hung up instantly. My heart pounding so hard it felt like it was going to explode. I ended up waking my mom up in the middle of the night. I printed out the conversations shaking the whole time

Starting point is 00:21:43 and she told me we deal with it in the morning. I tried to sleep, but every little noise in the house made me jump. The next day at school, everything seemed normal, but I couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching me. When I got home, my mom told me that around lunchtime someone had been at the door, ringing the bell over and over and even banging on the glass of the patio door. She had seen him, a man standing outside looking at the house as if he knew exactly what he was looking for.

Starting point is 00:22:16 My mom called the police immediately and wrote down the license plate of the van that was parked out front with the engine running. Later we found out he was already known to the authorities for similar behavior and that he had a record for harassing people online and showing up at their homes. Knowing he had actually come to our house was terrifying in a way that's hard to describe. From that moment on, I completely changed the way I used the internet. I deleted friend requests from people I didn't know in real life, stopped posting private information, and kept my social media as restricted as possible. Even years later, I still check my accounts carefully and avoid adding strangers at all costs. That night taught me how quickly curiosity and a single

Starting point is 00:23:01 click can turn into something dangerous. And it's a lesson I've never forgotten. Story 5. I remember a weekend from a few years ago. The weather was lazy and overcast, and I was lying around the apartment, killing time on my phone with no particular plans. My roommate back then, let's call him more, was sitting across from me, messing around on his Facebook, when he suddenly froze mid-scroll. I looked at him and watched the color drain from his face as he stared at the screen. Clearly, he'd seen something that didn't make sense. In his feed, there was a profile that looked exactly like him. Same photo, a similar style. but with a completely different name and claiming to live in our city.

Starting point is 00:23:54 That other hymn appeared to be in an online relationship with a girl from the United States will call Jay. At first we laughed nervously, thinking it had to be some weird coincidence or a joke. But R decided to message Jay to explain that she was talking to a fake account. Jay was hesitant to believe him because the fake profile had a lot more friends and looked more legitimate. So R. suggested a video call to prove his identity. When they connected on Skype, Jay went completely silent for a moment. Her expression wiped off her face. And then she immediately sent a link to another fake profile.

Starting point is 00:24:33 This time it was using my photo. According to her, my imposter and R's imposter were supposedly engaged online and had two children. My stomach dropped and my head spun. We were stunned, not sure whether to be. to be scared or just stay in shock. As we dug deeper, we discovered the chilling scope of what was happening. There were almost 20 fake profiles in total, all modeled after our friends, posting updates that mirrored our real posts.

Starting point is 00:25:04 Exactly. These accounts interacted with each other, copied our statuses, and even seemed to know details about our lives that weren't public. For example, R and I decided to spend a day at Dream World. We didn't tell anyone about it, and yet the fake profiles had already posted that we were there, with the location tagged and everything. It became clear that someone was following us very closely, tracking us and recreating a digital version of our lives in real time.

Starting point is 00:25:35 The feeling of being watched grew heavier with each passing week. Every time we did something social, seeing friends going to the store, just taking a simple walk, The fake profile would reflect it online, always one step behind us. We tried contacting Facebook to get the accounts taken down, but nothing worked. We also reported it to the police. As expected, they had no real leads to act on, and we were left with a total sense of helplessness. Whoever was behind it had managed to friend almost everyone in our circle, which gave them access to private updates and photos.

Starting point is 00:26:14 but we had no way of finding out who they were or what their intentions might be. One night after weeks of insomnia and constant anxiety, the fake profiles simply vanished. No warning, no explanation, no trace of their existence anywhere. We never found out who was behind it. And for months every notification or friend request made me hesitate, wondering if it could be them again. Even now when I think back on it, it unsettles me to imagine how someone could create a marred version of our lives and follow our every move without us suspecting a thing. It left an indelible mark on the way I see social media and how much I trust online connections.

Starting point is 00:27:00 And to this day, it remains a mystery that still lingers in my mind. Story 6 A few years ago when I was in my early 20s, My life felt really unstable. I was living alone, still recovering from some mental health issues, and most of the time I was pretty isolated. Binge eating was a big problem back then, especially at night, when I would order delivery after delivery just to fill the emptiness I was feeling. One evening I ordered pizza, as usual, trying to distract myself from the loneliness and the stress of school and work. When the delivery guy arrived, he looked older than me, maybe late 30s or early 40s,

Starting point is 00:27:49 but he was polite, friendly, and we exchanged a few words as he handed me the food. He might have commented on my piercings, my hair, or even the shirt I was wearing, but nothing that suggested he considered us friends or wanted to get personal. It was a brief interaction, exactly the kind of polite small talk you expect when someone brings you in order. A day or two later I saw a friend request on Facebook from someone I didn't recognize at first. When I looked closer, I realized who it was, the delivery guy from the other night. I realized he had probably remembered my name or written down my information from the order to find me online. That thought tightened my chest. It was unexpected and unsettling.

Starting point is 00:28:36 At the same time, I was lonely, craving connection, and desperate to have someone to take. talk to. So despite a small inner voice warning me not to, I accepted the request. I told myself it didn't matter, that it was just a weird coincidence, and that maybe it would even be interesting to get to know someone new. Deep down, though, there was already a flicker of doubt. In the days that followed, I started noticing that he was leaving comments on my post that made me uncomfortable. They were flirty and a bit sexual, completely out of place, and definitely not the behavior of someone who just wanted to say hello. I didn't respond or engage with them, but every time I logged into Facebooks, there they were, reminders of how he had crossed a line. From a brief casual interaction into something personal and inappropriate.

Starting point is 00:29:31 The situation made me more aware than ever of how some people blur boundaries without thinking, and how being polite or friendly during a professional interaction doesn't give anyone permission to track you down or comment on your private life. Eventually, I removed him from Facebook, realizing that ignoring him wasn't enough, and that I needed to take my own boundaries seriously. Afterwards, I felt a strange mix of relief and lingering anxiety. Thinking about how someone I'd barely interacted with could find me and try to insert himself into my life like that. Since then, I've had other delivery drivers try to cross boundaries, never to the same extent. But it's made me extremely cautious about sharing personal information,

Starting point is 00:30:17 especially with people I don't know well. Looking back, I see that experience taught me a lot about privacy, trusting my instincts, and the importance of keeping professional interactions separate from personal life. Although the situation was unsettling, it also gave me perspective. I learned that being polite and kind doesn't mean I owe anyone access to my private life and that being careful online is just as important as being careful in real life. I still order delivery.

Starting point is 00:30:49 I still enjoy tipping and making brief small talk with drivers, but I've built a protective barrier around myself and my information. It's a reminder of how quickly casual interactions can become uncomfortable when boundaries aren't respected. and it's a lesson I'll carry with me whenever I share personal details online.

Horror Stories - 6 Most Disturbing TRUE Facebook Horror Stories That Turned Social Media Into a Nightmare

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