She had a rule about meeting men from the internet: full CIA mode before any date. Look up the name, run it through public records, confirm the person is who they say they are. She’d done it enough times that it was second nature.
This time, she was running late.
In a TikTok that has been circulating widely, @maddybingbong walked through what happened when she skipped her usual process and nearly paid for it. She’d matched with a guy on Facebook Dating, they’d exchanged a few messages, and when he asked if she was free that evening she said sure. She got ready, got in the car, and started the 30-minute drive to meet him for dinner.
Her mom, feeling uneasy, started digging while her daughter was on the road.
There had been one small thing that hadn’t quite registered. When she’d asked the man for his full name, the screenshot from his Facebook profile showed his last name spelled backward. She ran a quick search, found only minor traffic violations, and kept driving. What she hadn’t done was search his actual name.
Her mom did. Using MyCase.gov, Indiana’s public court records database, she looked him up with the correct spelling and found several charges: battery, strangulation, and multiple counts of breach of privacy.
The call came just as the daughter was pulling into the parking lot. “Do not go inside,” her mom told her.
She didn’t. Instead, she called the man directly. She told him her mom had looked him up and found some things. He confirmed the charges were real but tried to minimize them, telling her it wasn’t as serious as it sounded and that she had nothing to worry about. She told him she didn’t know him personally and couldn’t take that on faith. “I’m going home,” she said. “I can’t make that risk.”
As the Daily Dot reported, she later said in a DM: “All I can say is that it definitely was an eye-opening experience to never let my guard down.”
Back home, she blocked him on every platform. In the video she pushed back on anyone tempted to frame what she did as standing someone up. She was clear: you don’t owe a stranger your time, your presence, or an explanation. The plans were made, the information changed, and she made a different call.
The comments filled up with people sharing their own versions of the story and swapping safety tips. Several pointed to public court records databases as an underused resource, and a few others noted that a name spelled backward on a dating profile is itself worth a second look.
For more dating videos, follow @maddybingbong on TikTok.
This article originally appeared earlier this year.
