U.S. Congressman Presses Facebook To Do Something About Romance Scams

Facebook is rife with scams that use fake accounts to prey on people, talking them into a romantic relationship and coercing them to send money. However, many of these fraudulent accounts use the names and images of real people — leaving the identity theft victim frustrated, confused and powerless to stop their likeness from being abused.

One such person who had their identity co-opted is congressman Adam Kinzinger, a former military veteran. (These scams often steal the names and images of military members.) That’s why Kinzinger wrote a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg this week, pressuring him to do something about this widespread fraud.

“There needs to be accountability for this issue that can, quite frankly, destroy lives,” Kinzinger wrote in his letter. “Facebook has an immensely significant role to play in getting this situation under control.”

Kinzinger also said he’s in the early stages of drafting legislation to force Facebook to confront the issue. Other lawmakers agreed, saying that the prevalence of romance scams illustrates how much work Facebook still has to do to clean up its platform.

“We continue to see that despite a lot of public pledges to address core problems with its platform, Facebook still remains incredibly vulnerable to exploitation by bad actors,” Sen. Mark Warner said.

There’s no doubt that Facebook has a fake account problem; the company itself estimates that it has as many as 120 million. Now the pressure is on Facebook to do more to stop it.




Recommended Resources

bitdefender The Choice of Tech Experts Worldwide. Try 90 days free of Bitdefender 2020 and experience the highest level of digital safety.

PIAPrivate Internet Access is an award-winning, cost-effective VPN solution. The use of an anonymous and trusted VPN is essential to your online privacy, security and identity protection.

System Mechanic 14 – Make your computer run like new. Winner of 200+ Editor’s Choice awards!

Facebook Patents Ability To DM You Ads Previous post Facebook Patents Ability To DM You Ads Report: Facebook Has Failed To Clean Up Fake Product Reviews Next post Report: Facebook Has Failed To Clean Up Fake Product Reviews