Someone I know personally was scammed out of thousands of dollars by a person on Facebook that they thought they knew. Their friend was overseas and in need of assistance, and of course they could pay them back when they returned home. Unfortunately the friend overseas was actually a cloned account made to look exactly like their friends Facebook account. Their actual friend had never gone overseas and was completely unaware that someone was being scammed out of thousands of dollars in their name.
I’ve recently seen an increase in friends accounts being cloned on Facebook. So this article is for anyone who has received a Facebook friend request from someone they thought they were already friends with. It is for anyone who has had their Facebook account cloned. And finally it is for anyone who wants to avoid having their account cloned in the first place.
Following good practices when dealing cloned accounts not only keep us safe but also reduce the risk of the most vulnerable amoungst our friends getting scammed.
Firstly, here is the TL;DR (the short version):
If you receive a friend request from someone you are already friends with:
- check with your friend if the request is really them (it probably isn’t)
- if it is not from them, report the fake profile, let your friend know and delete the friend request
How do I stop people cloning my account?
- make sure your Facebook friend list is not public
Why can’t I see the cloned account?
- scammers often block the person whose account they cloned — so the original person remains unaware and cannot report the fake account
What do you mean cloned?
So much of our information on Facebook is public. It is often easy for someone else to take all that information and create a new profile with all of those details and pretend to be the original person. It is simple to do. Anyone who has created their own account has all the skills they need to create a clone account. Some people create clone accounts of high profile people for satire or comedy. Others might create clone accounts for the purpose of cyber bullying. Some clone the account of an influencer to try to get a slice of their online earnings. But the most common reason Facebook accounts are cloned is to pretend to be someone and then scam their friends. This last reason is what this article looks at.
I thought we were already friends!?
If you have received a friend request from someone you’ve known for years or were already Facebook friends with — check your friends list before you accept this request! If you are already friends on Facebook — do not accept the new friend request. If this is a cloned account, you are the person being targeted, not your friend whose account was cloned. The person cloning the account hopes to pretend to be a well known friend of yours and scam you in some way. They might ask for money. They might send you links that they claim are photos or videos and then you are asked to log back into Facebook to look at them — but it’s a fake Facebook site and you are actually giving the scammer your Facebook user name and password.
At this point it is worth checking if this account is a clone account. I definitely have friends who have created new accounts because they got locked out of an old one, or they lost their phone, or any number of other reasons. So go to your friends Facebook feed to see if they have already posted about having their account cloned or hacked. People often say — “my account has been hacked” — when in fact it has really been cloned. If they haven’t posted anything, you might also see that other people have posted on their feed that their account has been cloned/hacked. If you don’t see any of this, it is worth putting a post of their feed explaining what has happened — you can put a screen shot of the new friend request that you got. Unless you hear back from your friend — you still can’t be sure that you are dealing with a cloned account. If your friend has been locked out of their original account and has actually created a new account, you will never hear back from them by messaging their old account — you may need to contact them some other way.
Once you have confirmed that this new friend request is actually a cloned account, it is time to report the account and delete the request. At time of writing, Facebook allows you to report friend requests, and will ask you why you are reporting it, including who the account is pretending to be. Here is how to report — How to report a Facebook account or page that’s pretending to be me or someone else
Finally you could post this article to your friends Facebook page if you found it helpful.
How do I stop people cloning my account?
Well you can’t. But you can make it much less likely. And the easiest way to do this is to hide your friends list. Everyone should make sure their friend list is not public. Here is how to do that — Adjust who can see your Friends section on Facebook
When scammers clone your account, they take your name, profile pic & cover photo and make an account that looks basically the same. Then they look at your friend list and send friend requests to everyone on that list. If they can’t see your friend list it is much harder (not impossible) to figure out who you are connected to and therefore who to attempt to scam. Scammers will generally just go for the easiest option — if your friend list is hidden from them they will move on to the next person.
Why can’t I see the cloned account?
It seems to be a fairly common practice for scammers to block the original person whose account they cloned. This means the original person can not find the clone account and report it. Which is why it is important for friends of that person to report the account. Facebook tends to ignore a single report. If lots of people report the account it is more likely get deleted and this protects more vulnerable people who might fall for the scam profile.
