Message warning of “new modus” on Facebook. Fact Check

A message online claims that there is a “new modus” on Facebook where crooks will open a 2nd account with a victim’s profile picture, which they’ll use to take money from your friends and put the victim in “Facebook jail”.

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An example of the message can be seen below.

Please beware of a new modus on FB. They will take your profile pic or any pic on your FB and open a 2nd account then add friends to your friends and borrow money with your face of the 2nd account. Not only that, they will make a post that will put you in jail.
So I would like to inform my family, relatives and friends if ever someone will add you my second account or same name: PLEASE DO NOT ACCEPT because it’s not me. I have no plans to create a new account. I only have one fb and messenger. Thank you and God bless us all. Stay healthy and stay safe, everyone

The message appears to be another attempt – albeit a poor one – to describe a real scam called Facebook cloning. However the message above is not only poorly worded (possibly because it derives from a non-English speaker or auto-translation tool) but also contains inaccuracies. We would recommend sharing more accurate warnings.

Facebook cloning is a scam where crooks take the public profile picture and name (and possibly other public information) from a person’s Facebook account and use it to create a new account that would – upon a cursory glance – appear to be a duplicate account. They then try and trick that person’s friends into accepting a friend request. From there, any number of scams can play out, since the scammer is masquerading as the person who’s Facebook account they “cloned”.

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This is why we recommend making sure your Facebook account isn’t cloned by hiding your friends list from public view. This way, scammers won’t know where to direct their friend requests if they choose to duplicate your account.

As such, the advice in the message about watching out for a second friend request from someone you’re already friends with is good advice.

But the message makes other, more confused claims as well. For instance, the message claims that the crook will “borrow money with your face”. It’s not clear what this means, but it is possibly a vague allusion to the “friend in crisis” scam. This is where crooks – posing as someone else on Facebook – will try and trick the friends of the person they’re pretending to be to sending them money, often by falsely claiming they’re “stuck abroad” or some other type of crisis. This is one possible scam that can occur if a scammer tricks users into accepting a fake friend request by pretending to be someone they’re not.

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The message also vaguely claims that the crook “will make a post that will put you in jail”. We’re not sure what this means. We assume the reference to “jail” means “Facebook jail”, which is online slang for having restrictions placed on your Facebook account. But we’re not aware of any “post” made by the crook that will result in the person who’s account they cloned having restrictions placed on their account.

Finally, the claim that this scam is a “new modus” is false. Facebook cloning has been around for a number of years. We’ve talked extensively on this scam a number of times throughout the years.

While the general advice about not accepting an unexpected second friend request is genuine, the message may result in more confusion due to its confused wording and inaccurate claims. We recommend sharing more accurate information about these types of scams. We have more information on Facebook cloning and how it works here.