Within the past two weeks, I have had seven people try to facebook friend request scam me. I am used to this type of scam, but usually, I get two requests a month.
I have a business page, and when people request to be my friend on my personal page, I need to accept them because they may be potential business colleagues. So I do and then go about deciding if they are legit or not.
I have a dry sense of humor, so I like to play with these people a bit before I block them. I do not recommend this because scammers are master manipulators. Please be careful.
Facebook Friend Request Scam Conversations
I am going to recount some conversations I have had and then give you a list of ways to determine if they are real or fake people. I am also going to show you how to block them so they cannot see you, your page and also message you.
All of these conversations take place within a few minutes of accepting their friend request. I will not use names because the names they use are real but not their own names.
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Conversation #1
Conversation #2
Other: How are you?
Other: are you there?
Other: are you there?
Me: I’m good
Other: I am a famous wrestler with WWW. The girls love me, and I am having a party here tonight. I am inviting everyone who is important.
Me: OK
Other: I am leaving for Denmark tomorrow and will not be back for nine months
Me: so
Other: Where do you live
Other: It would be good for you to know me. I am famous.
Me: OK
Other: are you listening to me:
Me: sure
Other: I will have to go to bed soon. I am wrestling tomorrow.
Me: OK
Other: I am bored.
I then blocked this one from Facebook and messenger. This conversation was one of the strangest ones I have had
Now this person began a conversation on my facebook page, so I moved it over to Facebook Messenger. She repeated the same words that she put on my page when she got to messenger.
Other: How. R. U. Do u. Have. A lot. Of. Friends. I don’t Do. To. My husband passed. Away. In. 2017
Other: Hi. Good. Morning. How. R u
Other: Where. R. U from
Me: Ok. So why is it hard to make friends?
Other: Every. Time. I. Meet. Friends. They. Say. They. Will. Call. Me. And. They. Domt
Me: You sound a bit desperate. Could that be part of the problem?
Other: No I’m Not. Deserate
End of conversation, unfriended and blocked from messenger.
Conversation #3
Conversation #4
Other: You have a beautiful smile. How are you today?
Me: Fine
Other: where do you live?
Me: Well I live in the bayou, and I have 8 kids. My husband beats me, and my kids don’t have any shoes.
Other: Where do you work?
Me: I just told you I have 8 kids and can’t work because my husband beats me. Do you have any money for me to put shoes on my kids?
Other: Where do you live?
This conversation was clearly automated. Probably the Other person did not speak English.
Other: What’s up?
Me: I am not sure how we became friends
Other: I added you as a suggested friend from facebook
Me: oh OK
Other: Yah. So how are you?
Me: Good. Pretty busy right now.
Other: doing what?
Me: writing.
Other: How is your love life?
Now I am not sure what was up with this conversation but I am confident it would have eventually headed down the will you give me money road. This one was typical but more direct than usual.
Facebook friend request scam has been around a long time, but the way people are approaching it is different now. They come at us from all angels.
What Do You Ask A Scammer?
It is important to determine if they are your friends or a new potential friend. Here are some questions that may help you determine whether to block them. You want to keep it short and to the point.
- Do you still work at_____? If it is someone, you know it is good to ask if they work at a place that they have never worked. If it is not the person, you know they will give themselves away or say something off the wall.
- What is your story? I have found they usually get defensive but will come right back with an inappropriate question. Like: Where do you live?
- When they ask a question give an unbelievable answer. Like: If they ask, Where do you live? Your response could be, I live in a cave at the north pole and sunbath every day. They will probably come back with another question. Like: Where do you live?
Dos And Don'ts
Don'ts
- Never give personal or geographical information.
- Never tell them what you are doing right now. They are phishing for information to determine what your time zone is.
- Never act like you are flattered when they compliment you. They don’t care about your appearance. They are after your money or to get you to launder money for them.
Dos
- Do give short answers. Like: OK, sure, of course, you think.
- Do block them as soon as you find out they are fake and/ or a scammer
Most Important
But most of all don’t friend people you don’t know if you do not have a business or a need to reach more people. My business Facebook page is for this website but also my inspiration website. I want to help people, but I need to determine if they are real or not.
As soon as you determine someone is not real or not safe please block them immediately.
How To Block Someone On Facebook
- Click on the down arrow at the top of your page.
- Click on the settings
- Look to the left of your page and click on the block
- In the center of the page put the person’s name in the box and click block.
How To Unfriend A Person On Facebook.
- On your Facebook page go to your friends.
- Search for the person’s name in the search box.
- When you find the person, you are looking for click on their profile picture.
- When you get to their page just below their profile photo, click on friends
- Then click unfriend.
How To Block On Messenger
These are the instructions from the Facebook help page and only work on I Phone or I Pad
- Open a conversation with the person you want to block.
- Tap their name at the top of the conversation.
- Scroll down and tap Block.
- Tap next to Block Messages.
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If It Promises Quick Easy Money
Then It May Be A Scam
See the method that taught me all I needed to know to make a passive income online.
Please share with us your experience. There are so many variations of Facebook or Instagram scams out there. And if you have questions I am here to assist you. Please leave your comments and questions in the comment section below.
Interesting and helpful post! If you’re familiar with Facebook and the various types of scams there, then you already know to be suspicious of messages or “friend” requests from people you don’t know. But it’s very easy for scammers to steal your friends’ Facebook identities, so even if you can trust your friends in real life, you still shouldn’t trust them on Facebook. Thus is amother worrying facebook style of fake friends request and after accepting, you find them asking you to follow them on the shiny object path.I had experienced that too before, I received a request from “Stefan”, who seems to be a relative I was already friends with on Facebook. Odd, I thought. Perhaps her account was shut down, and she had to start a new profile? But after the whole chatty session, I realized he is just a bloody scammmers. My opinion is that such person should be block immediately once we find out their wrong motive because any lingering may be detrimental. I love this post because it really she’d more light. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you so much for your input on this post. You have brought some vital information to the table. The knowledge that others who read this also need to know. Yes, there are a lot of scammers posing as our friends.
If I have this happen, I will ask the person a personal question that I know the answer to. For example; I had a request from a person I use to work with. I asked her if she still worked at a place that I knew she had never worked. The answers were way off base. So I replied with “I know this is not ——- because you gave the wrong answer. They immediately blocked me.
Hi Laura
My sister fell victim of this 2years ago on messenger and she was scammed of money. Recently also on my Facebook I get some strange friend requests but I block them straight away. I discovered that someone can send you a private message even before you accepted the friend request. This give this scammers an avenue to get through to one’s inbox. Facebook doesn’t protect one’s privacy it’s better for people to be blocking unknown names immediately. Thanks for sharing this article.
I noticed just a couple of days ago that someone messaged me before I accepted their friend request. thank you for sharing this with us. And no facebook does not have their users best interest at heart. They allow many dangerous things to take place.
Its a pity that the social media platforms especially Facebook is not save to use again. But are we going to abandone it and neglect all the good businesses and opportunities out there? No. I remember the time of investing in Bitcoin businesses on Facebook. A lot of people lost their to the hand of scammers. If I met a new friend asking for money or whatsoever I ignore the person immediately. But thanks to this tutorial on how to block people on FB. I don’t think I know about this before. Thanks
You are welcome for the tutorial. Yesterday I had a guy try to get me involved in bitcoin on facebook. There are so many different ways to scam on Facebook that it is hard to keep up. People have to be so careful.
Hello Laura. The first time I got this type of message when started using Facebook, I did carry a short conversation, not knowing the true intention. It got weird and I stopped. Nowadays, whenever I receive a “How are you…?” message, it will be dumped immediately. I figure a genuine friend request will never private message asking this particular question. Instead, they will post a friendly message on my wall.
With your article, I hope more people will be aware of these devils behind the mask.
Good day!
Sharon
Sharon, I hope this post helps to make more people aware of the dangers. Thank you so much for stopping by and reading. Please feel free to share this post with anyone you feel may benefit.
Dear Laura,
Thanks a lot for the great and helpful advice and an awesome post.
You not only discussed the problem in your post but provided with the solution which is amazing.
Being a full-time blogger and focusing to create my brand I am active in Facebook, as you correctly said I too receive a lot of request and thinking they might be potential and needy people to share about making money online I accept the request. Later I get unwanted messages as you shared.
All I do is I don’t reply but going forward as you explained it well I will block them.
Recently in the place where I live there is a big news and its the talk of the state (Southern part of India). Many girls (100+) fallen as a victim to these scam conversations and faced a lot of difficulties which I am ashamed to share. So your post is a must read for everyone and everyone need to be very careful with these scam conversations.
Thanks Again!
Paul
Oh, Paul, this is so sad to hear about all of these girls falling prey to Facebook scams. So many girls want someone to like them and pay attention, and they think a facebook friend is an answer. Please feel free to share this post with anyone who may need this information. And thank you for stopping by to read.
Hi there, for the past few months personally I don’t accept friends requests on Facebook again from strange people, I have noticed some scammers are even desperate enough that they will use the and and even pictures of young fine ladies, anybody who’s not careful might even fall their trick and manipulation. Sharing this your experience here will help a lot of people and also how to block them on messenger including Facebook is the best ideas. They are getting wiser everyday and that’s why every Facebook users needs to be careful of these ugly scammers
Yes, you are right. Everyone needs to be very careful. The scammers are becoming so manipulative they can almost convince anyone of anything. Yes, scammers will use whatever tactic that will get them money. Be safe.
Hi LauraThank you for sharing this informational post. I do get a lot of facebook friend request where I normally will just ignore if the person who requested is someone I don’t know or never met before. This is because I use to get scam before where someone suddenly ping me via Facebook messenger. Then, they provide me with a link and when I click there is nothing happen. The worst part is when I try to access my account the next day, I get a notifccation saying that my password is invalid which I’m pretty it’s not.I try to recover the password by using the forgot password link but facebook say my email also incorrect. That time, I know that I’ve been scammed since it is very suspicious when the person approached me in Facebook messenger.The sample conversation that you put on this post is very useful. Now I’m going to approve all the pending request and use the tips that you have shared in this article :)RegardsSamm
Please be careful when you do friend them. Only do this if you need to for a business or something like that. The scammers can be very manipulative.
thank you for the information on the messenger scam. I have not had this one happen to me. That would be a nightmare to start all over with a new FB account.
Hi Laura, there is an increase level of scam going on on the internet. I dare say these folks are getting more desperate by day. I will certainly heed to your warning. Conversation one is truly strange, from being bored, he might have started talking about intimate stuff if you hadn’t blocked him.Conversation two was a bit gibberish, and she truly sounds desperate. Conversation three was hilariously, I had a hard laugh at 8 kids and beatings from husband.Your tips on what to do and what not to do are great, especially the geographical or personal location.Thanks your post made my day.
Thank you. I think many are aware of this type of scam today. I was so upset about the increasing amount of FB scams I just had to write this.
But even though this scam has been around a long time, people still fall prey to the tactic. That is so sad. People need to go to work and earn an honest living instead of taking money from others.
Laughter is good for the soul and I am happy I could make you laugh.
I thought I had had some strange conversations on Facebook but that was before I read this post. Conversation 3 just cracked me up.
Jokes aside, thanks for shedding some light Laura, the FB friend request scam is an increasingly annoying phenomenon and people need to be made aware.
Personally I have very little tolerance for these guys and I block them upon reading “Where are you from?”
I mean, what do you honestly care? Why do you need to know? Did I ask you? No, I did not, so why do you ask me? How do you think I am going to disclose my whereabouts to a stranger?
I believe we can also call it the HHW scam format:
Hi! – How are you? – Where are you from?
Do not get hooked or you are done for.
Another worrying facebook phenomenon is fb friends/acquaintances asking you to follow them on the shiny object path.
If you have experienced that too, I would really appreciate if you could write a dedicated post about it.
Thanks in advance for your reply,
Andrew. I am so happy you found the humor in parts of my post. I love the HHW scam format. It is so true. And the shiny object path. I have had 5 of those this week. So I may very well be writing about that one soon. Thank you for your input. All we have to say can help others.