Are you bright enough to recognize scammer/fake accounts?

[NeuroTypical]

https://www.facebook.com/stellazoe.333

https://www.facebook.com/Robertbrown.000

https://www.facebook.com/jamesedward2290/

 

 

[zil2]

I no longer have a facebook account, so I can only see the first one.  Meanwhile, for a brief moment, I considered making a facebook account for Klaw, but then came to my senses.

[mordorbund]

3 minutes ago, zil2 said:

I no longer have a facebook account, so I can only see the first one.  Meanwhile, for a brief moment, I considered making a facebook account for Klaw, but then came to my senses.

Last thing this world needs is cyber bullying cats.

[Carborendum]

The first two are fakes.  That third one almost looks fake.  But I believe it to be real.

[zil2]

46 minutes ago, mordorbund said:

Last thing this world needs is cyber bullying cats.

Hey!  My kitty is no bully!  You know that game where you look around the corner of something and quickly pull away, and while you're not visible the cat sneaks closer, repeat until the cat pops out and attacks you?  Well, yesterday we were playing that with a tunnel made by an area rug, and when Klaw popped out, he bapped me in the face - no claws, just a gentle bap with one paw before running away.  Pretty sure that's the kitty version of tag.

[Carborendum]

Ok. I've changed my mind.  I wish I could change my vote.  I believe all three are fake.

[NeuroTypical]

THE ANSWER: 

I believe all 3 are fake.  These are all accounts that sought membership in my ward's Facebook page.  Folks requesting access answer 3 questions: 

- Are you a member of [NT's] ward, and are your records on our rolls?
- If not, who recommended this site to you?  Sorry for the hassle, we just get a lot of scam accounts and I need to verify you're real.
- Do you promise to follow the group guidelines?

All three of them gave a "yes" to question 1.  None of them appear in my ward directory.  None of them said a single thing when I blocked their account and told them why.

 

I'm grateful I don't have a bishopric member who fights for these spam accounts because "We should let 'em all in, they look like nice people, and maybe they'll learn something and feel the spirit."  I know other folks have to deal with that level of technical savvy. 

Edited August 24, 2023 by NeuroTypical

[Jedi_Nephite]

On 8/24/2023 at 1:41 PM, zil2 said:

I no longer have a facebook account, so I can only see the first one.  Meanwhile, for a brief moment, I considered making a facebook account for Klaw, but then came to my senses.

I made a Facebook account for the family cat.  Why?  I have no idea.

[zil2]

1 hour ago, Jedi_Nephite said:

I made a Facebook account for the family cat.  Why?  I have no idea.

  I'm sure Klaw would like a place to complain about Meowmy.  For example, today, in addition to abandoning Klaw to go to something called "Church", Meowmy allowed a stranger in, and when the stranger left, and left behind a brownie, Meowmy didn't let Klaw have any of the brownie.  Further, Meowmy didn't allow Klaw to stay outside as long as Klaw wanted (she complained about "too hot" as if!).

(But in my experience, people use facebook in ways that I find exceedingly disappointing, and I expect Klaw would discover the same, so we came to our senses and got out a toy to play with instead.)

[Phoenix_person]

This is a fun* game to play on Tinder as well.

*There's nothing fun about it. 

[NeuroTypical]

34 minutes ago, Phoenix_person said:

*There's nothing fun about it. 

Same with Craigslist.  I was trying to sell a fancy roll bar that came with a used truck we bought.  Probably a dozen people expressed interest, 10 of them were scammers, 2 were just random people who tried to talk me into giving it to them for free.  Finally had a used car buddy sell it for me.

Last week I sold something spendy, I had it posted on Craigslist, Nextdoor, and Facebook Marketplace.  I used CL's email spoofing, didn't include my phone number, mentioned cash only, and said I'd be happy to meet the buyer at a police station parking lot.  All that seemed to get me only human responses.  The guy who ended up buying it from me talked me down to a McDonald's parking lot, and when he showed up, both of us expressed relief we were real people and not scammers.  

[Carborendum]

6 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

Same with Craigslist.  I was trying to sell a fancy roll bar that came with a used truck we bought.  Probably a dozen people expressed interest, 10 of them were scammers, 2 were just random people who tried to talk me into giving it to them for free.  Finally had a used car buddy sell it for me.

That's sad.  Not that your buddy sold it for you, but that you had such a time in Craigslist.  I've had great success on Craigslist.  Unfortunately, I had two very bad experiences that was really my fault for not knowing enough about the product.  But the overall experience was what Craigslist should be like.

I did have two scams that I detected as soon as they wrote their first email to me.  I played along and asked them detailed questions.  Finally, they sent me the original email again (word-for-word).  Yeah...

[Jedi_Nephite]

On 8/27/2023 at 7:07 PM, zil2 said:

  I'm sure Klaw would like a place to complain about Meowmy.  For example, today, in addition to abandoning Klaw to go to something called "Church", Meowmy allowed a stranger in, and when the stranger left, and left behind a brownie, Meowmy didn't let Klaw have any of the brownie.  Further, Meowmy didn't allow Klaw to stay outside as long as Klaw wanted (she complained about "too hot" as if!).

(But in my experience, people use facebook in ways that I find exceedingly disappointing, and I expect Klaw would discover the same, so we came to our senses and got out a toy to play with instead.)

Arwen occasionally gets on to judge our Facebook posts.

[Grunt]

I didn't look at any of the accounts.   Lately the issues we've been dealing with aren't the fake accounts, which are usually easier to spot, but the hijacked accounts.  The hijacked accounts have longevity and real posting history.   You often don't know they are fake until they start posting about duct work.

[NeuroTypical]

Yep.  There are also spoofed accounts which grab the picture and bio of someone, and set up another account in their name. 

I got contacted in FB Messenger by an old ward buddy who had recently lost his wife. 

"Hey NT how are things going?"  
"Good Bro X - how is life treating you these days?"
"Pretty well.  I'm getting ready to buy an RV and do some travelling."

At that point I knew it was a spoof account, because dude doesn't do FB, and can't type that accurately to save his life.  I reported and blocked him, and the account was gone in 5 minutes.

 

I also got contacted by one of the ward kids I used to know.  He would have been about 26, and has some developmental issues meaning he'll never live independently.

"Hey NT are you there?"
"Sure Bro X, what's up?"
"I hope you can help me.  My car just broke down in Laramie and I owe them $50.  I've got a job but won't get paid until Thursday."

Totally believable story and I'm thinking 80% it's really him.

"Dang dude that's rough.  I can get the money to your mom right now - she can give it to you."
"I won't be home tonight and I really need the $$ now."
"It's ok dude, I'll venmo it to her, she can get it to you the same way."

Dude stopped interacting at that point.  I reported and blocked him, and the account was gone in 5 minutes.

[NeuroTypical]

Lol I finally got the new member questions correct for my ward's Facebook account:

 

[Carborendum]

3 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

I'm having trouble figuring out why people would want to set up a false profile to sign up on your ward's FB group.

Is it just to see if they can dupe someone into sending them money without actually talking to anyone personally?  Do people really fall for that?

Edited October 2, 2024 by Carborendum

[NeuroTypical]

It's all about building a "plausible reality" for a fake account.  You look like a real human if you have friends, belong to groups, and interact with people.  

There are a lot of reasons folks want a ton of fake accounts that look real.  Various kinds of theft from data theft to identity theft to scamming for money or products.  Signal boosting to forward various agendas.  I saw a decent study from the CIA documenting how Russia activated it's Twitter-bots to boost anti-science signals a decade ago.  Iran or proxies are in the game, boosting anti-Israel signals.  In recent years, ANTIFA got boosts from fake accounts.  This year, anti-Israel sentiment in the US got massive boosts, especially college-protest related stuff.

There are massive amounts of fake accounts on all sorts of social media.   Just ask @pam how many new fake accounts she bans here every week.   AI is absolutely in the game.  In the last 24-ish months, we've had an astounding number of new accounts wanting to post on very old threads.  Their posts are on-topic and accurate.  They post once, and we never see them again.  It leads me to believe they're fake AI accounts, and this place is like a testing ground for an algorithm to see if they can program something to find a thread and give a real-enough response to be mistaken for human.  

But yeah, I'm kind of proud for my "who is your favorite prophet" question.  All the non-Christian scammers are saying Jesus.  And the scammers who happen to be Muslim will say Muhammad. 

Edited October 2, 2024 by NeuroTypical

[pam]

I ban 25-30 new spammer accounts every single day.

[LDSGator]

Don’t accept any friend requests from some dude named @mirkwood. Nothing but left wing rants every day.