"i always used 2 use chatrooms when i was really bored and one night i met a boy online who told me he was 16 and his name was jake, we got talking and i thought he was well alright, he seemed so normal he had me fooled!!

we started to meet up in chatrooms and chat 4 hours everynight then one night he asked me 2 meet him but by this time i had found out he was 28!! but stupidly i still wanted 2 meet him as we has spoke ova the fone he did sound normal and not weird so i thought why not. he was going 2 drive down and he wanted us 2 spend a night in a hotel but i STILL wanted 2 meet him. i thought he would b this drop dead fit bloke.

then i had relised that meeting him was a stupid thing 2 do and i thought no way as my m8s had theated 2 tell my mum but only coz they cared and i see that now.

when i told him he weren't gonna meet he got really nasty ova the fone and ova chatrooms he called me sum really nasty names and told me what he was going 2 do 2 me which freaked me out! so i stopped going on that chatroom and avoiding any chatrooms.

it just shows u that u cnt trust no1 ova the internet and wen i think now that i was going 2 meet him and spend the night wit him i wonder wot could of happened 2 me. im glad i seen sense"

 

You can be whoever you want to be when you sign on in chat, or in an online game, and choosing a nickname and pretending to be someone else can be part of the fun. However, just as you might be fooling others, others might be fooling you. So it is always best to stay on the side of caution and if you feel uncomfortable with the way a conversation is going you have several options:

• Stop and leave the conversation – it normally takes just one click to leave a chatroom for example.
• Block the person who is making you uncomfortable so they can no longer contact you
• If it is really serious, then you can report them to the Chat or IM provider or moderator
• If none of these works, as a last resort you can change your contact details, i.e. your username/email address or mobile number so this person cannot contact you anymore.

If someone is pestering you to meet up or hassling you it may be that they aren't the nice person they say they are and may be lying about their age, interests, and even their sex. Be particularly suspicious if the person you are communicating changes their age, and explains that actually they are ‘not 15 but 26’ for example in the course of your chats.

• BBC News article - 'Man jailed for sex emails to girl', a story of a 42 year old man posing as a young girl online