Facebook: Friend or Foe - Five Clues to Catch a Phony
Posted: Thursday, July 09, 2009
by Teresa Ortiz
Freelance writer/Speaker
For the most part, Facebook is a lot of fun. It's great to keep in touch with friends and family members and even take the latest quiz. Oh yes, I do confess, I have been sucked into finding out what Wizard of Oz character I am most like, or what instrument fits me best.
It's also fun catching up with old friends from high school. It's been interesting to see how many of us changed in unexpected ways – some for the worse and some for the better. Then you have those friends that are stuck in high school. There have been several times where I cringe when I see some of the comments and "status" lines come across my home page. Yikes! Nevertheless, as I said, it is fun, and I don't intend to stop participating – but I will be smarter.
Such was my experience last week. Thankfully, it ended without incident. Regardless, I feel it is important to share the following five clues that led to discovering that this "friend" was actually a foe seeking information regarding two families. It is my hope that it will help others who are new to social networking – whatever the site may be – so that they will not fall prey to the creepers of the networking world.
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Think twice before approving a friend request from People whose names are unfamiliar to you and do not have a picture attached – even if they claim to be a friend of one of your friends. If you should accept such a friend request – watch for the following.
1) Are they new to the network?
2) Do they ask you where you live? Do they claim to be new to the area?
3) Check their information wall – what is their phone # is it legitimate. Does the zip code match the area they say the live in? Watch for a few days, does the information change?
4) Watch for comments on their wall – who are their friends? Are they only people in your circle of friends?
5) Ask them how they found you and how they met some of your other friends.
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This played out between four specific friends and family members. I received a friend request. When I opened it, I saw that she was a friend of my best friend's son. So I accepted without thinking.
Later the same day, I received a call from a friend and family member asking who this person was. They had also received a friend request. They accepted as well. It didn't take long to realize we were the only friends on her list, and then we noticed the phone # was fictitious – reading area code + 123-4567. Interesting. But then other things didn't make sense, her comments were vague, and she seemed more interested in where we lived and who we knew than sharing about what normal friends do.
Further investigation revealed this gal had a birthday which was a combination of month, day, and year of family members.
By the third day, her friendship list grew, but again, they were only from the list of one particular family member. In fact, others began to wonder as we did, and starting asking her how she knew them. She said she just went to the profiles and started picking friends because she was new to the area. We knew she was lying because you cannot go to a mass list and randomly pick names that just happen to be connected with each other. You must type in a specific name, after which, you chose who is the correct "John Doe".
This was the fourth thing that caused us to be 99% sure of who this person actually was. By day four, we learned the area code used belonged to the city in which the one we suspected lived. When confronted, she merely changed the area code and phone # and gave an excuse for this change.
This person was reported to Facebook administrators and each of us cancelled our "friendship" with her.
We learned a valuable lesson in this; never accept a friend request from someone you do not know – period.
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More commentsHi Teresa! Thank you so much for this valuable information. I must admit I have accepted a few, two I think, friend requests from people I do not know. I'm still not sure why facebook is such neat thing for people to network on. I guess b/c you can upload articles and photo's but when getting in touch with friends and family I prefer the telephone or second best Yahoo messenger. But I am on face book because two friends asked me to go there, and so I do appreciate this important information about facebook.Many blessings to you and your family.AngieHi Angie,Its good to hear from you. Glad this info was helpful. I appreciate the fact that we can post links to articles on SW or our other sites/blogs. :-)Lord bless you and yours as well! Teresa
Hi Teresa.I've been lucky with Facebook and haven't had any such requests. But on Twitter, I'll get an announcement that someone I have never heard of is following me and when I go to check on them, find that they've been suspended for suspicious activity. So there is a lot of that going on out there and your warning is a valuable one.I am glad that nothing bad happened to you.Hugs,DianneHi Dianne,I haven't had that happen on twitter, but you do confirm it happens on other sites as well.I am glad this ended, I just hope overall it ended and she doesn't show up in other places.Thanks for the comment. Hugs, Teresa
Hi Teresa,
Good advice for neophytes and vets of the net. I get scams in email, too. Some people are so lonely until any attention is considered an answered prayer. They are the easiest targets. I hope your clues are read by many. Like Dianne, so happy your situation was without detriment. Great article, Sistah T!
Blessings and love,
Avisoh- you remind me of another facebook thing that has happened twice. It is an message from a friend that has "My home Videos" in the line. It is a porn thing - and a virus. I didn't open it because I noticed a derogitory acronym at the very bottom. But if in a hurry, one would think the friend sent a home video.We do have the good and evil in everything, don't we?Hugs to you Sistah A!!
What an experience! Do you know if Facebook investigates also? Thanks for the info, Teresa. I'm glad the person was found out!They reply with an acknowledgement, but they do not report any outcomes. I would like to think they follow up.Thanks for the support! My friend is the one who put the initial pieces together. Kudos to her!Love ya!
Great advice T! I am glad you guys figured this so-called "friend" out! Thanks for sharing your experience. I am positive it will help others!Hey LT, thanks I am glad too! And I do hope it helps! Love ya! T
Teresa,Very intersting and well laid out. I'm not yet doing Facebook although I know it has to be a near future project but I am constantly being hounded by people who want to be my friend. And, I don't know them.This was well-done and gave me very good insight as to how to check on someone's validity.Many thanks and thanks for the email and you still didn't answer my question,NancyHI Nancy, thanks! glad this tips are helpful.Oh-no....Did I miss something? I don't remember a question. Email me again. Sorry, I spaced out on this.Big hugs,TeresaI'm still praying :-)
hi t,i have had to block my e mail address from "undesirables" and change my phone number, and i only accept facebook friends i know.it's hard to keep one's privacy in tact in this technical age.thanks for sharing,my best,sueHi Sue, thanks for the comment. It is nice that we have the block features available to us. dealing with the bad is always apart of enjoying to good. Sigh. But I am still grateful for technology. It has allowed me to make some amazing friendships. I love that Seachwarp has been a great place and only has very few meanies that pop in and out on occasion.Hugs, t
I'm glad it works for you, but I don't understand the draw of Facebook, or MySpace, for that matter.Oh well, back to the cave!Hi Anon, thanks for the comment, I understand your thoughts. I used to feel the same about facebook, but I do appreciate being in touch with old friends :-) Blessings to you!
Teresa, great advice. The sad truth is that some people are inherently bad and will abuse whatever tool is at their disposal, virtual or real. Now I'm going to go update my FB status and tweet about this!Hi Robs, thanks! It's true, there will always be those who ruin the good. Glad you are inspired to tweet about this :-) Blessings dear friend! T
Well written, detailed article. Thanks for writing about this particular experience. Like everything else, there are those out there who do their very best to ruin things for the rest of us. It is definitely a dangerous world in many ways and we have many more things to watch out for these days. I've been lucky with FaceBook but I've heard similar stories to yours.
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