Facebook is a wonderful venue for sharing information, photos and fun with friends, but unfortunately it is also a haven for scammers.
Every post you see and every message you receive must be viewed with a skeptical eye if you want to avoid falling victim to those who are out to cause you grief or separate you from your money.
Now there is a type of scam making the rounds that is even more insidious than most. Scammers are making virtual copies of real Facebook accounts by copying the photos and info from the real account’s “About” page to the fake ones. They then send friend requests to the friends listed on the real account.
Once the scammer has several of the original account holder’s friends on the fake account’s friends list, there are countless ways those people can be scammed because, well, we tend to trust our friends, right?
If you receive a friend request from someone you are already friends with, search your friend list to see if you are still friends with that person. If you are, you have just received a friend request from a duplicate (and probably fake) Facebook account.
Some people do open duplicate accounts for whatever reason so there is always a chance that the friend request really came from your friend and not a scammer.
You can usually find out by messaging your friend at the account you are already friends with and ask if the friend request is legit. Even better, if possible you can call them on the phone or visit them in person and ask.
If the new account turns out to be fake (and it probably will), you can report it to Facebook so they can delete it.
To report a fake Facebook account simply follow the steps below for the device you’re using.
If you use Facebook in a web browser on a laptop or desktop computer:
1 – Visit to the Timeline page of the fake Facebook account.
2 – Click the button labeled with three dots (it’s located beside the Message button), then select Find support or report.
3 – Click Fake Account, then click the Submit button.
If you use the Facebook app on a mobile device:
1 – Visit to the Timeline page of the fake Facebook account.
2 – Tap the More icon below the profile picture (it looks like three horizontal dots).
3 – Tap Report profile.
4 – Tap Fake Account, then tap the Submit button.
That’s all there is to it. You have just reported the fake account to Facebook.
I recommend letting the friend who had his/her account cloned know about it ASAP so he/she can report the fake account too.
Facebook does take these reports seriously and they do delete cloned accounts, but they take action faster if several people report the account instead of just one.
If Facebook receives several reports about the same account, they’ll usually investigate and shut it down fairly quickly.
For that reason I recommend that you ask several of your friends to report the fake account as well.