Call for vigil by social media users against fake FB profiles

‘Accepting friend requests looking at mutual friends’ list not safe’

Noticing a spike in the number of social media scammers who create fake Facebook profiles to request money, the cyber cell of the city police has called for better vigil on the part of social media users to secure their accounts by enabling privacy settings. Accepting friend requests from suspicious accounts in Facebook is projected as the biggest risk factor now, which in turn helps fraudsters steal personal data, including photographs and mutual friends’ list, to create fake profiles. Cyber cell officials who probed some of the recent such cases said many of the complainants did not even verify the requests for fund transfers in person. The majority of the complainants were well-educated professionals including doctors and teachers, they said. “There were also a few who came to know about the trickery after transferring funds to the original persons’ accounts using the already stored banking data. Though many of them got their money back, such individuals were also the victims of the fraud,” said a senior Civil Police Officer with the cybercrime investigation team. He also pointed out that the practice of accepting friend requests from unfamiliar persons by casually looking at mutual friends’ list should be stopped for online safety.