This post should serve as a warning to anyone who accepts friend requests from people that they do not know.
Two weeks ago, a woman sent me a friend request on Facebook.
Because I didn’t know who she was, I clicked on her Facebook profile in order to investigate.
This fake Facebook profile appeared relatively normal.
The person behind this fake Facebook profile went through a lot of effort to make it look legitimate.
They had done their research on my area and they had listed their place of work as a local hotel.
Furthermore, they had also uploaded multiple photographs of the same girl. This girl was pretty and she looked like a regular person.
However, they made one crucial mistake.
This “girl” had an all-boys school listed as her previous high school.
Many of my Facebook friends accepted “her” requests.
Unfortunately, a number of my mutual friends threw caution to the wind and decided to accept “her” friend request.
This is despite the fact that they did not know her. Within a day or two, the account had accumulated 100+ friends from my local area.
Once they accepted the request, the fake account started to message them in broken English and ask them if they would like to become her “acquaintance.”
Most of them ignored her at this point, as they knew that something wasn’t quite right.
A pretty girl being that forward with someone they have never met before?
It was too good to be true.
Unfortunately, one or two of my friends ignored the warning signs and continued to message her.
To make a long story short, one thing led to another and eventually, they were trading compromising videos and photographs with this “girl” on Snapchat.
Blackmail.
After they sent their “compromising videos”, the fake account began to blackmail them.
The threat was simple.
“Pay us money or we will upload the video to social media.”
When one of my friends refused, she uploaded one of his videos to Youtube. She also put his name and place of work in the description.
The title of the video was even worse, as it suggested that he had sent it to a 12-year-old girl.
Basically, the person behind this fake profile wanted to try and sweat him as much as possible.
Once the video was on Youtube, she started to share the video on his Facebook timeline so that all of his friends could see it.
In the end, he decided to delete his Facebook account.
Since this event, I have noticed an uptick in the number of fake Facebook profiles that are sending me friend requests.
The people behind these profiles have put a lot of effort into making them seem real. This is because one or two payouts is enough to make it all worth it.
These scammers are even using Facebook’s new “backdating” feature to make their profiles seem older than they are.
This feature allows them to make it seem like they uploaded a photograph a few years prior.
How to spot a fake Facebook account.
Typically, the profile pictures and cover photographs on fake Facebook profiles have a low like count. In other words, their profile pictures will only have one or two likes, and there will be no comments on them.
You’ll also find that the fake female accounts have a much higher ratio of male friends, which is unusual.
The only way to be 100% sure is to not accept friend requests from people you do not know.
Remember: If something seems too good to be true, then it probably is.