Not my plan.
THEIR plan!
So – since Facebook (and no doubt other social media companies as well) do just about zero due-diligence when someone creates a new cloned account, I’d argue I see a new one at least once a week. Generally it’s pretty obvious, and usually I just don’t accept new friend requests of people I’m already “friended” to – if it’s someone I actually interact with I’ll generally double-check: “hey, you didn’t generate [link to other profile] did you? Let me know so I can report this (and you should do the same) is my usual message – and then after confirming that it’s a cloned account I report the fake account through Facebook.
However, because I’m curious about the end game, I DO occassionally accept the friend request, wait for the inevitable “Hello How Are You” and maybe even wait through a couple of “did I do something to upset you that you no answer” prompts before just chatting back. Generally it’s clear that I’m receiving scripted responses, perhaps just timed messaging, maybe some sort of low-grade AI multiple choice answers that sort of line up with my responses. Weather and the time of year are frequent topics.
A year or two ago the popular tactic seemed to be for the account to just lay low and then claim to need money in some way. Okay… obvious scam… obvious motive. But this past year it seems to eventually get around to tax bonuses… did I know about x y or z benefit? This has sometimes been accompanied by a link, sometimes not. I cut and paste the link, view the source, doublecheck where it’s sending me – but so far they’ve not been malware sites, just legit tax benefit links.
I mean – is there some low-level government official whose job is to underhandedly inform me that my Christmas bonus, if I were employed in such a way that these things existed, can’t be counted towards my minimum required hours or against overtime? And the best way they can do it is by cloning Facebook accounts?
Your officials or theyre [sic] representative should have informed you about your DoLRIGHTS!
Seems the long way around.
Alright – in any case – scratch the above – we TOTALLY know how to party.
