So… My identity was cloned last week on Facebook. It’s not the first time. Much to the amusement of my Wife (of 28+years) I’ve also had people impersonate my on sites like Match.com and Christian Mingle (really!).
I received a notification on my Facebook Business Page wondering if it was me. The profile name wasn’t but all the pictures certainly were!
Whoever he is, he sure is a handsome devil! 😉
The profile pic I recognized from a Flickr folder from when I was invited by the US Coast Guard to go out on one of their ‘SWAT boats’. Yes that’s a 50 Cal gun – and no, if you know me I didn’t touch it – although the others did!
The cover image was from an Early REBarCamp San Francisco – maybe the 2nd one?
No matter what, the bad guy grabbed a whole bunch of my pics and then created a new profile.
WILL FACEBOOK TAKE THEM DOWN?
The simple answer is yes. All I had to do was go over to his fake profile and a few clicks later he was reported, a few minutes later and he was gone!
Here’s how.
Under the … Icon you’ll see a drop down.
Click on Report and “Report this account“.
Next you’ll see a more indepth question. In my case it was easy, “This timeline is pretending to be me”
Next click the Me box – or if you have found a friend who this has happened to you would click that box. In the case of an Elvis impersonator it’s up to you 😉
Continue and you’ll see the “Submit to Facebook for Review”
Once you’ve done that you are finished. Here’s what happens next. Your request is not handled by anyone in this country. The notification is shipped off to a remote location in a third world country (seriously). It’s there that they have a human being make the snap decision to either give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down. They do have special tools (like tineye) to check but don’t expect them to spend much if any time on your case.
If everything goes right, and it did in my case, you’ll have a answer back in just a few minutes.
And that’s all it takes.
Now if you see one of your friends being spoofed on Facebook, take a moment and let them know so we can get the slimeballs out of there. (now if we could just do something about all the crappy marketers and politicos – right?)
Mike Mueller
He's an avid hockey fan, rides a mountain bike, a few motorcycles (he had a really fast one,bought a cool orange one, and still rides a really slow one), he loves strong beer and good red wine.
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