"She's your daughter," one message would say. Another one said, "ready to die??????????"
While they were terrifying, he assumed they were sent by bots. So Cords just tried to ignore them. Then it got worse. He started getting flooded with texts and calls from real people.
Strangers across the country would send him messages, saying things like: "Just text me back I'd love to explore with you," and "Where in Seattle are you i want to cum fuck."
He didn't know where these sexually explicit requests were coming from until a friend found a fake profile with his name, photo and phone number on Scruff, a gay dating app with more than 10 million users.
"Super turned on by sext's and pics," the fake profile's bio read, "Prefer text. Don't message me here."
Dating apps have changed how we view online romance, allowing people to connect from a swipe on their phones. It's commonplace now -- more than 90 percent of the US' 54 million singles have tried online dating.
But as convenient as technology has made online dating, it's also done the same for online harassment. Stalkers are able to track their victims' every move, exploit social media to spread revenge porn, and use tools like virtual private networks to mask their identities.
For Cords, it turned his phone into a source of constant harassment.
"It's a terrifying ghost in your pocket, in every way," Cords said. "You live and die by your phone. You can turn it off, but when you turn it back on, it's rendered useless by the thousands of messages on it."
Cords' example is one of many cases across the US -- the Department of Justice prosecuted 16 last year -- in which stalkers use dating websites and apps to abuse their victims, often leading to threats at their doorsteps. These fake profiles often invite strangers to sexually assault them in real life, under the premise that the intended victims welcome it. These fraudulent profiles project a fantasy about being raped and wanting to be surprised.
"The overwhelming majority of our domestic violence cases involve some type of technological abuse," said Sadie Diaz, a senior staff attorney for the Courtroom Advocates Project.
Stalking victims say that dating apps and services have done little to prevent this abuse. They often plead with companies to delete the fake accounts and block the stalker from creating more.
They've found that the services were either slow to respond, or in some cases, didn't respond at all.
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