I am frequently asked on Facebook, “How can you tell?“, when I call out a bogus poster. And there’s no short answer. There are many, many different tells. I’ll try to compile them all here, as a “Guide to Spotting Fake Facebook Profiles.”
Major Giveaways
Does their Facebook URL match their Display Name? A lot of sock puppet accounts are set up with the user’s true name, and they later change the Display Name to something American-sounding. But they forget to go back and change the end of their Facebook URL!
They “Like” their own posts and photos. I’m not 100% sure why they do this. Maybe they hope it boosts their credibility? But regular folks on Facebook usually do not Like their own stuff.
If the profile shows where the person works, be leery of generic employment words. If you see “Works at Clinic Office” or “Self Employed”, that’s a red flag. It’s more common for even a self-employed person to give a specific name for their company!
Does the profile say that it is “locked”? That’s a tell-tale sign that the account was created in another country. Facebook does not allow “locked profiles” in the USA. So, if a Facebook user is claiming to be from somewhere in the 50 states, but their profile shows that it is locked, we have found a lie!
Also, I often peruse the different people on a suspicious account’s Friend List. Or I consider the other people that are Liking their photos and posts. If a Facebook account claims to be from Wisconsin, but most of their Friends hail from Pakistan, that gives me pause, leads me to dig further…
More Advanced Techniques
Sometimes, a fake Facebook profile is really buttoned up. They’ve hidden their Friends List and all other personal information. Their photos are unremarkable. But click through each part of their profile, to see if anything is shown. Even if they’ve just left one review with their account, it could be a clue:
Looking over that “Vents Cleaning” page, I get the impression that it’s just another scam page for a service referral scheme. These fake accounts often comment and place reviews on each others pages, again, to boost their legitimacy and credibility.
Many bogus Facebook profiles still post a lot of normal looking things on their feeds, like inspirational quotes and cat pictures. It helps them fit in and look normal. But if you scroll through an account and see a lot of Shared posts, where the content is missing, that’s another red flag. That’s a sign that they’ve been promoting a lot of content that Facebook has later nixed, due to it violating their TOS.
Lastly, you should know that the Facebook Search field is your friend. When you see a suspicious name or post, copy that name and/or the first sentence or two of what they typed. Paste it into the search field and see what posts turn up. If you’ve found a scammer, then their name or post is going to show in many other places on Facebook.
Reporting Fake Profiles
Now that you’re feeling more capable of spotting fake Facebook profiles, you should be ready to report any you encounter.
- Click on the account’s name to visit their profile page.
- Below the masthead photo, click on the three-dots button to the right.
- Click Report Profile
- Click Something about this profile
- Click Scam, fraud or impersonation
- Click Impersonation
- Click Fake profile
- Click Submit
- Optional: Click Next and Done
For some profiles (labeled Digital Creators), the steps are a little different:
- Click on the account’s name to visit their profile page.
- Below the masthead photo, click on the three-dots button to the right.
- Click Report Profile
- Click Fake Profile
- Click They’re not a real person
- Click Submit
- Optional: Click Next and Done
After you report a profile, you’ll get a boilerplate message like this:
And later on, you might receive another message like this:
And I can wrap up this post with surprisingly good news. Facebook is now acting on some of these types of reports. I don’t know what or when they changed, but today, I am noticing that many of the accounts I report are being removed and deleted, often within an hour!
