Scammer Awareness and Other Facebook Safety Tips

I've received fake duplicate friend requests five times now from scammers pretending to be someone I know. This scamming technique is incredibly handy because it doesn't require any hacking. Scammers take your name and your profile picture to pretend they are you on Facebook. Then they go through your friends list to friend and message your friends posing as you to tell them about some too-good-to-be-true deal if you just click such-and-such link.

Here's some instruction on what to do if you receive a friend request like this and how to keep scammers from targeting you. You can see picture instructions below if you're unsure of how to do any of these things.

What to Do when you Receive a Scammer Friend Request

If you receive a friend request from someone you are already friends with (IE a duplicate profile) you have a couple options on how to react.

1. Don't accept the request and report the fake profile. (See how to report below)
2. Notify your friend and their friends by posting on their timeline and letting them know that the scammer account is out there.
3. If you're unsure if it's a scammer or not, you can accept the friend request. But if they message you almost instantly with "big news" it is more than likely a scammer. 
4. Don't ever click on a link that a profile like this sends you. As soon as you're sure, report the profile and notify your friend.

To Keep Scammers from Targeting You

The best way to make sure you're not targeted is to adjust your privacy settings. Changing your password won't actually keep scammers from using your Facebook identity because they are not hacking your profile to impersonate you. They're just taking your name, picture, and friends list which usually anyone on Facebook can see and using it to make a duplicate account. To keep this from happening, you can change your privacy settings so that only your friends can see this information.

1. Set your friends list privacy so that only you or your friends can see it so that spammers can't friend request and message your friends. 

   

   On your profile, go to your friend's list under your profile picture.
   Hover your mouse over it and select the pencil emblem and click on "Edit Privacy"

   

   Select the "Friends" option to ensure that only your friends can see your friends list.

   
   
2. Make sure all of your personal information can only be seen by your friends as well so that scammers can't use it to impersonate you.

   

   Scroll down to the about section on your profile which
   will be on the left side of the screen. Hover over a section so that the
   pencil appears. Click on it to edit the about section.

   
   

   

   In the right corner of each section there will be a symbol that indicates the privacy of the section.

   
   

   

   Click on that symbol to change the privacy of that section of "About."
   Repeat this process for the different sections of the About section to make
   sure your information is private.

3. Don't ever accept friend requests from people that you do not know personally. 

Pass along and share this message to raise awareness about this new scamming technique. The more people that are aware of this technique, the less effective it will be. 

Stay cyber safe fellow Facebook users!

See how to report account on Facebook here: 

Go to the profile and click on the three dots to the right of the page.
Select the "Report" option.

Click "Report this Account"

Select the "This timeline is pretending to be me or someone I know" option.

Select the "Someone I know" option.

This window will pop up. "Submit to Facebook for Review" option.

This option will appear and you can type the name of the friend that is being impersonated here.