After being burnt by men pretending to be women to talk to a man (on fetlife) if I will be meeting someone, or if the relationship feels like it is developing, I will at some point ask for proof, nothing major, a picture of them holding a piece of paper with a statement I ask them to write.
I happily do the same. These days there are so many images that can be lifted from the internet you may think this person with 500 pics is genuine, then you find that Sarah is roger from Scunthorpe, he is a fat balding middle aged man with nothing else in his life, he isn’t even gay. Now that confuses me :)