It looks like a Facebook Hoax is going viral today. In a very short amount of time, I have gotten two messages on Facebook Messenger and seen dozens of posts about accounts being hacked. This hoax is playing on everyone’s fear of being hacked or spoofed on Facebook. Most people either know someone who has been hacked or spoofed if it hasn’t happened to them personally, so this message is spreading like wildfire. It will look something like this:
Hi….I actually got another friend request from you yesterday…which I ignored so you may want to check your account. Hold your finger on the message until the forward button appears…then hit forward and all the people you want to forward too….I had to do the people individually. Good Luck! PLEASE DO NOT ACCEPT A NEW ONE FROM ME AT THIS TIME.
One of the clues that this is a hoax is that the message urges you to forward it to more people. If you had indeed gotten a second friend request, you would just need to let that one person know about it. There would be no need to forward this message to every one of your friends. If you got the message, you may want to let your friends know that it is a hoax. You can send them the link to this blog post. Or here is a link to another site: https://rutherford.dailyvoice.com/news/scam-alert-dont-forward-got-another-friend-request-from-you-facebook-pm-its-a-hoax/742955/
What is the difference in getting SPOOFED/CLONED or getting HACKED? If you are SPOOFED or CLONED, it means that someone has created a fake account pretending to be you. They steal pictures and information from your real Facebook page to make it look as authentic as possible. Then they send out friend requests to all your existing Facebook friends in hopes they will accept. Then once they get some of your friends to fall for the fake Facebook profile, they start sending them scams usually by private message and will tell a sob story and ask for help usually in the form of money. If you find out you have been SPOOFED/CLONED, report it to Facebook and let your friends know that you have not sent out any new friend requests.
Getting HACKED means that they have guessed your password and have actually logged into your account and have access to everything there. If you are HACKED, you should immediately change your Facebook password. It is important to choose complex, hard to guess passwords that contain upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols.
Have you ever been SPOOFED/CLONED or HACKED on Facebook?