Don’t share the “I got another friend request from you yesterday” warning on Facebook

A Facebook message claiming someone received “another friend request from you yesterday” is spreading across the social networking website.

The message then urges users to forward the same message onto their own account or send it to their own friends on Facebook. An example of the message can be seen below –

Hi….I actually got another friend request from you yesterday…which I ignored so you may want to check your account. Hold your finger on the message until the forward button appears…then hit forward and all the people you want to forward too….I had to do the people individually. Good Luck! PLEASE DO NOT ACCEPT A NEW ONE FROM ME AT THIS TIME

The message is inaccurate, and is more likely to cause confusion than actually help anyone. As such we don’t recommend spreading it to your Facebook friends (unless you actually did get another, suspicious friend request from them.)

It is true that there is a real type of scam that has been present on Facebook for a number of years called Facebook cloning. This is where crooks create a new Facebook account using the profile picture and name of a Facebook user, in effect creating (upon a cursory glance) a duplicate account. The crook then send friend requests to all of that Facebook friends in a bid to trick them into accepting a friend request.

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From there, the crook can try and action out any number of different scams. This is why we always recommend being suspicious of getting friend requests from people you’re already friends with, and verify it is actually them before accepting. You can help your friends by making your Facebook friends list private so crooks can’t see it (and won’t know who to send friend requests to if they duplicate your account.)

However the message above is causing confusion, because it urges users to forward a message that states “I actually got another friend request from you yesterday” when that isn’t the case. This may lead the recipient of the message to think their account has been cloned or “hacked” when it hasn’t.

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Of course, if you do receive a second, suspicious friend request from someone you are already friends with on Facebook, you should let them know as it may mean their account has been cloned and they may need to work to get the cloned account removed. But sending this message just for the sake of sending it is unhelpful, and counterproductive.

Essentially, while it may sound obvious to many, you should only send warnings to your friend about getting another friend request from them only if you actually have received another friend request from them. Sadly, this common sense advice hasn’t been followed by a number of users.

We discuss Facebook cloning in more detail here, explaining how it works and how you can help avoid such scams. We recommend giving it a read and sharing it with your friends. However sending messages like the one above is certainly not recommended.