As a male model, Matt Peacock is used to having his photograph taken and leaving a trail of heartbroken women in his wake.
But when he found that scores of men had stolen his image to lure lovers on dating sites he hired a private detective.
After one of the men was confronted in November, he broke down in tears and swore he would stop, but continued three weeks later. Mr Peacock, 34, from Stockport, Greater Manchester, then went to the police who said no laws had been broken.
Now Mr Peacock wants the government to make “catfishing” — where people create false online identities to lure people into relationships — illegal. The MP for Stockport, Ann Coffey, echoed that call in parliament yesterday.
Mr Peacock believes that more than 40 fake profiles were created using his images on Facebook, Instagram, the dating websites Plenty of Fish and Tinder and “apparently a few swinger sites” too.
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One victim considered suicide after finding that her eight-month virtual relationship with “Carl Chambers”, who used Mr Peacock’s picture, was not real. Another was enraged to discover that the real Mr Peacock was married.
Mr Peacock said: “I am a fashion model so there are a lot of pictures of me out there. I started getting messages from girls I had never seen before saying they had been talking to someone pretending to be me.
“It’s affected my life. I don’t want to get the phonecall one day that a girl has been talking to someone she thinks is me and has ended up harming herself or worse. You never hear of online bookies losing money to a fake profile and that’s because they have stringent checks — I want those checks rolled out.”
His wife, Rachael, 30, was also contacted by people telling her he had been cheating. Pictures of his nieces and nephews were used by men claiming that their fake persona was a “caring dad”.
Ms Coffey said: “Catfishing is a modern day menace affecting many innocent people. It can cause years of heartache.
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“A new law should make it very clear that if someone takes someone else’s identity and poses as them online then they are committing an offence.”
Catfishing was named after the predator that scuttles along the ocean floor feeding on smaller and more vulnerable fish. It was the subject of a 2010 US documentary that led to an MTV reality series, Catfish: The TV Show.
There is no specific law against stealing a person’s identity to lure others into relationships. If any money is requested, the deception becomes fraud and can be easier to prosecute.
Ms Coffey said that the digital charter and green paper on internet safety was a chance to make “agreements with companies about how to make safer online sites” and “for legislation to outlaw catfishing”.