Loophole Allows Facebook Imposters to Go Unreported

Facebook fraud has become an increasingly common issue, particularly the scourge of imposter profiles. However, as IT World exposed in a recent report, it can be extremely difficult for victims of Facebook identity theft to get the fake version of themselves removed from the site. As often seems to be the case on Facebook, the culprit is security setting loopholes that you could drive a semi-truck through.

The IT World report details the account of a woman who received a Facebook request from her own husband, who already had a Facebook profile and was obviously already friends with his wife. When her husband tried to search for his own imposter profile, he couldn’t find it because the imposter had blocked him, thus making the fake page invisible to him. It gets even more diabolical from there: in order to report a profile as an imposter, the real user has to go to the imposter’s Timeline and select “Report/Block.” However, if the imposter blocks the real deal first, then the imposter can’t be reported. Kind of ingenious, no?

You can submit a report to Facebook about the fake profile, but then that will permanently block you from seeing the profile, and that’s obviously bad too: you’re going to want to know what became of your fake self. Perhaps craziest of all, you can report an imposter profile on Facebook using a specific form designed for just such an incident, but you can only access said form if you do not already have a Facebook account. It’s a bizarre, potentially dangerous loophole that is all too easy for scammers to exploit, and Facebook should rectify this seemingly obvious error ASAP.

Be sure to see our full report on how scammers, bullies and thieves use fake accounts to wreak havoc on Facebook!

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