Have you ever checked your Facebook profile and seen a friend request from a close friend or family member and since you trust this person, you click accept without a second thought?
The scam works like this: A scammer will copy their victim’s profile photo, their victim’s name, and any other information they can collect and will create a duplicate Facebook account and send friend requests to their victim’s entire list. After this, they will block their victim, leaving this person unaware of any fraudulent activity.
Once the scammer has created the fake account and begun growing a list of friends, there are several scams they may impose.
• Steal Information: Once you have accepted a new friend request, your privacy settings are most likely no longer helping you. This fraudulent account now has access to all private information, photos and anything else you share on your profile. They may use this information to carry out more serious forms of identity theft.
• Spam: Scammers may use this fraudulent account to share links that may send you to unsafe sites, steal your information, or infect your computer or device with malware.
• Emergency Sams: The scammer may contact your friends saying you are in trouble and are in need of money. Usually the request is to wire transfer the funds. BBB advises to follow these steps to help protect yourself from this scam.
• First check any friend request to see if you are already friends with that person.
• If you receive a friend request, check the profile’s photos and friends list. Fake profiles are often shells and will have minimal content including few friends and almost no photos beyond the profile and cover photo.
• Be careful with any message sent from a new friend you weren’t expecting and from profiles you aren’t friends with that end up in Facebook’s “Other” inbox. They can often contain links to malware or phishing sites.
• Practice general good social media security. Use a unique, strong password, enable two-factor authentication, review your privacy settings regularly, and check which apps you have given access to your profile.
If you are a victim of this type of scam, it is important to report the issue to Facebook as soon as possible. Also, be sure to alert your friends of the account hack and report the incident to BBB Scam Tracker, bbb.org/scamtracker.
Start with Trust® For more tips and information, visit bbb.org.
~ Shelley Polansky, VP/Marketing, Communications & Outreach