Don’t Fall For Latest Facebook Friend Request Scam

Have you received a friend request from someone you're already friends with? Heads up, it's a scam!

This one actually happened to me when I noticed a friend request from a family friend. The interesting part is that I'm already friends with that person.

I accepted the request thinking that they were just making a new page. I mean, it was the same name, picture and everything.

Then I received a message from this person. It started out generic with a "Hello," and "how are you doing?"

As I replied I was really suspicious, mainly because I never really talk to this person. Sure enough this person told me how excited they were that they received "500,000$ from the National world help company ... ." Boom, a spammer got my friend (and also placed the money in the wrong spot).

The tricky part is that the scammer didn't hack my friend's profile, they just copied her photo, and name, and started requesting her friends. I quickly unfriended the fake account and reported it.

The Better Business Bureau has some tips if this happens to you:

Always double check friend requests: Don’t just automatically click “accept” for new requests. Take a few moments to look over the profile and verify that account is a real person, not a scam. Scan your list of current Friends to see if any show up twice (the newer account is going to be the scam one).

Don’t blindly trust friends’ recommendations: Just because a link, video, or other information is shared by a friend doesn’t mean that it’s safe to click. It could be a fake account, a hacker, or mean that your friend hasn’t done his or her research.

Watch for poor grammar: Scam Facebook posts are often riddled with typos and poor English.

Alert your friends: If your Facebook friend suddenly starts posting links to work-at-home schemes or scandalous celebrity videos, tell him or her directly about the suspicious activity. Otherwise, they may never know that their account has been impersonated.

Report fake accounts to Facebook: Facebook does not allow accounts that are pretending to be someone else.