Yesterday I got a Facebook message from a cousin I see about every three years that said only “I want to stay Facebook friends”.
This just seemed so odd that I haven’t responded. I mean, we ARE Facebook friends.
Then just a few minutes ago I got a friend request from someone I thought I had already friended. I hit confirm. Then after a few minutes I went to the profile of that friend, which showed very little info, no photos, and only 6 friends, none of whom I knew. Then I went to my friends list and saw that now I had two friends of the same name, which includes an unusual hypenated last name. I can’t believe there are two people with her name.
I unfriended the recently added person.
Have these or similar happened to you? Do you think the message from my cousin is scammy?
I received a friend request from someone I didn’t know. At the same time my sister received on from this person, whom she didn’t know. And we didn’t have any mutual friends. Don’t know what’s up, but I left it alone.
Any time I get any sort of suspicious friend request, I try to message that person first to confirm how we know each other. If it’s any type of scam, spam or other bs, they won’t reply.
A couple years back, a completely fictitious person “infiltrated” my circle of FB friends. The person claimed to be an alumnus from the same school most of us went to (or were still going to), but she didn’t actually exist.
I was skeptical and didn’t accept, but many people did. I can only assume it was some kind of weird marketing gimmick, or proof of concept, or who knows what.
I did have one of those… New profile, very few friends/friends were not familiar. After asking the guy if I knew him, I got this in a response:
No baby, I am <blanked, just in case it’s a real person> 49yr old Medical Doctor, I am a simple, loving, down to earth man easy to please and to get along with, I believe that my actions will speaks louder than words as time goes by you will see and that is why i consider myself as a man of great actions, I hope that all works fine for us and when we are
together you will get to know more about me and I will rest assure you that you will never have any regrets in meeting me, I am a man who knows how to love and care for people who are dear to me, and as i have come to admire and cherish you its is now my obligation to love you, respect you, treasure you and care and provide for you till the last end of my life here on earth.
Hubby, after being shown this odd message, insisted that it was written by a woman. I ended up blocking/reporting the guy…
I think some of this can be blamed on quite a few of the games that Facebook hosts-the ones that depend on the player to have thousands of “friends” in order to advance. The more people on your team, the more powerful you are. If you don’t have a few thousand on your team, you can’t defend against other players who do.
Quick question semi-on-topic: how, exactly, do you find a person on Facebook from your past that you are trying to reconnect with? I would imagine that somebody with a very common name (John Smith) would be much harder than someone with a rare name-and then you might not know what a female friend’s married name is now.
If you search on a common name, FB will try to match you up with those people that either have common friends, or common circles (hometown, schools, companies).
Sometimes it’s easier to search for their friend or relative with an unusual name than to search for them directly. John Smith? No hope. John has a sister named Zandi Smith? Much shorter list. Search their friends for John.