What would you call this?

[Courtadelle]

What do you call it when a person creates a fake profile on a dating website or Facebook posing as a different person with intentions of flirting with people to get money out of them?

For example, this is a fake profile I found: https://www.facebook.com/ryanallen.sabrina?fref=ts

The name is fake, and the photos are of a pornographic actress/model by the name of Ariel Rebel. The person behind this profile added a friend of mine on Facebook and pretended to like him so "she" can get money out of him.

She promised him that she would come down and visit him, but she needed some help with her plane ticket first, so he sent her 800 dollars. Then she asked for another 200 dollars so she can "buy some jewelry" so he sent her another 200 dollars. When I found out about this, he already sent her the money, so I gave him a crash course on this, because I see too many people falling for this shit.

Anyway, my question is, what would you call this? Scamming? Being a catfish? Because I plan on creating a presentation based on it to inform the public about people who do this kind of stuff.
What about "profile fraud?" Do you think this would be a good description that people would be able to associate with the act of creating a fake profile on dating websites with the intention of getting people to send money?

[Chris D]

This is definitely "Scamming" or "Conning." You could also use "Deceiving", "Tricking" etc. Some people.