Here’s a real life story of a Facebook cloning scam

We recently spoke to Iain (not his real name) who described to us how he was defrauded online when crooks targeted him with a Facebook cloning scam followed by the friend in crisis scam.

How did it begin?

It started with what I thought was a friend request from my university friend Andrew. I hadn’t spoken to Andrew for about 5 years since leaving university, but as with most of my old uni friends, I’m still friends with him on Facebook.

So you were already Facebook friends with Andrew when you received the friend request?

I thought I was yes. But I didn’t really think much of it. I figured we had accidentally become unfriended or something like that, or maybe he created a new account. I’ve had a few friends that forgot their passwords or had their old accounts hacked so I figured that was probably the case here.

Did you doubt that the friend request was really from Andrew?

No. It looked like him. I recognised the profile photo since it’s one he has used for years, and it was his name. There was other stuff on his timeline but I didn’t really pay much attention since it has been a while since we last spoke.

What happened then?

Maybe a day later he messaged me on Facebook, said he was travelling but had been mugged somewhere in South America. He asked if I could send him some money using pre-paid gift card codes from iTunes.

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Were you suspicious at this point?

Absolutely. Why was he asking me? And why did he want gift cards? But he seemed really desperate. I had asked him why his family couldn’t pay but he said he was too embarrassed to ask them and that he wasn’t really speaking to them. Just a whole load of excuses, and that he was relying on me. He said he only needed $100 to get to the embassy so he could sort everything out, and that he would pay me back the next day.

Did you send the money?

Yes. I bought a voucher for iTunes and gave him the code. I don’t really know how they work but assume you can somehow transfer the amount into real cash I guess?

Then what happened?

After I sent him the code I didn’t hear anything back until the next day when he messaged again, only this time asking for another $100. He said it was for a bribe because the embassy staff wouldn’t help him without it. That’s when I stopped dead in my tracks and first thought, hang on a second, is this really Andrew? That’s the first time that thought crossed my mind.

So I searched my Facebook friends and realised I had Andrew down as a friend twice. That wasn’t that surprising because like I said I was sure I already had him as a friend when I accepted the request the day or so before. I messaged the original Andrew, not expecting a reply because I still was assuming he’s been locked out of that account and created this new one.

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But an hour later Andrew replies back. The real Andrew this time, from his original account. He said someone had created a new account with his details, and that he reported it to Facebook but it was still up. He said he’d been having to deal with messages from his other friends all day about it who also got friend requests from the account. He had even posted a warning on his timeline, and if I had read that in time then none of this would have happened!

So yes, that’s when I realised that it wasn’t Andrew that was getting that voucher code I had sent, but some random person pretending to be Andrew. I wasn’t happy and I’m yet to get my money back, and probably never will.

~

Iain fell for a Facebook cloning scam, whereby he was tricked into accepting a friend request from a scammer posing as one of his friends. We discuss cloning scams in more detail here.

Facebook cloning scams are the first part to a larger scam, but the “end game” of that larger scam can vary. In Iain’s case, it was the “friend in crisis” scam, where a crook, while disguised as a trusted person, claims to be in trouble to trick a victim into sending them money.

Crooks had duplicated Andrew’s Facebook account, and because Andrew had his friends list set to public, the crooks knew exactly who to send friend requests to using the duplicate account.

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Here are some tips to avoiding this scam –

– To help protect your friends, hide your friends list from the public. This way, scammers are less likely to clone your account to try and scam your friends, since they don’t know who your friends are! Learn how to do it here.

– Never send money to friends or family based on social media chats. You never know who is on the other end of an online. Call or arrange a face to face meet first to verify it’s really them.

– Be sceptical of friend requests from people you’re already friends with, and, similar to the above point, verify it’s actually them, and not a crook pretending to be them.

– Never accept strangers or suspicious accounts on social media.

– Be especially wary of being asked to send money by purchasing gift cards and providing the voucher number. This is a favourite (and untraceable) method used by scammers.