I want to be your ‘friend’…….again?!
Wait a minute. I’m already ‘friends’ with you. Did you make another account? Why?
It’s nothing new. Scammers deciding to become you by stealing your profile picture and or name on social media and whatever personal information you might have easily available on the internet. The scammers can be pretty convincing…..most of them. It’s up to you to be diligent and ask the questions before you even remotely consider accepting the additional ‘friend request’.
Last week a couple of my ‘friends’ were suspicious because they received a friend request from ‘Richard McCarthy’. They were already friends on social media with me so they took the time to investigate the Facebook request by sending me a private message inquiring about the request. Thanks for the alert friends! Sure as heck the scammer had easily stolen my profile picture and used it to create another ‘Richard McCarthy’ account. The account was reported as being fake and was easily taken down by Facebook. No harm – no foul. At least I hope not. I hope no one fell for it. Ask the questions first before accepting.
There are many people out there pretending to be who they are not. Some of them have unjust intentions while others do legitimately have more than one account and quite possibly think they are Spider-Man or some other super hero. Weird people.
Some times the fake accounts are easy to spot. A ‘Donald’ photo using my name? That’s an easy one to spot (I hope)….but the Tom Cruise photo as me? That’s a completely different story (when you’re viewing the picture in dim lighting. VERY dim lighting).
Be careful on social media! Stay safe.
