I will never offer you £100k in cash

Or a truly fascinating story about how someone tried to impersonate me and scam my Facebook friends

The other day a couple of my friends got a message from an account that looks like mine:

Mrs Polinarock Joness. Captain Obvious.

My friend Charlotte messaged me instantly, and we decided that it’s worth exploring – I needed to know what the scammers are using my name for, so Charlotte played along until we got the link:

…But it wasn’t enough for me. I needed to know if it’s a bot, or a real person, so we made up a story, and jeez! the scammer played along!

And THIS – THIS – is what they come back with… Is it worth mentioning that fake Polinarock also liked all of her own messages?

As soon as Charlotte revealed that she knows it’s a scam and she told me about it, both of us suddenly got blocked. At first, I thought our reports were resolved super-quick, and I was about to praise Facebook, but people continued getting messages – so we just got blocked.

But I had to continue with my investigation – in the end of the day, we got the link, and I can now pretend to be a person who genuinely believed that they can claim £100k cash. LOL.

So I followed the link.

Red flag No. 1 – grammar. And surname starts with lower case… But he has a kind face, right? Trustworthy face, I’d say.

Did you know that there is this magical function when you right-click an image?

Drumroll – the search revealed that this is indeed a trustworthy face – but of FedEx CEO 😀

Reviews – what a surprise! – weren’t positive either. A more thorough scammer would have got some fake positive reviews. It almost hurts that the scammer who was using my name is so mediocre.

But I messaged anyway…

Typical. You would then – OF COURSE – receive the approval and all you need to do now is to share your bank details… So I lost my cool. Unfortunately I couldn’t keep myself back, but I for sure didn’t expect so much aggression back…

The line about tracking them is obviously fake, but I think it got them a little worried….

Please report this page – it’s still live

It sucks when someone is using you to access your friends and try to scam them of their money – and unfortunately there is nothing we as individuals can do apart from putting more pressure on Facebook to deal with fake accounts and pages like that.

But there are a couple of tricks you should do to protect yourself if you think someone is pretending to be me (or any of your family/friends)

1. Ask a personal question – or a wrong one – for example, how is your granddaughter doing?
2. Ask for a video call – or a selfie if they are shy – scammers will always try to find an excuse not to
3. Message the ‘other’ account of the person who’s messaging you and let them know – AND REPORT

AND NEVER EVER share your bank details with anyone random.

I really hope that none of my Facebook friends fell victim to these horrible people, so please, my dears, stay safe out there and remember:

I will never offer you £100k in cash

Lots of love,

Po