There’s a message that’s been popping up in my Messenger inbox quite a lot lately. It looks like this:
It reads: “Hi….I actually got another friend request from you which I ignored so you may want to check your account. Hold your finger on the message until the forward button appears…then hit forward and all the people you want to forward too….PLEASE DO NOT ACCEPT A NEW friendship FROM ME AT THIS TIME.”
At first, you’d think that your friend actually got a friend request from you. But, if you keep reading, you’ll see the directions to forward the message. Directions to forward or copy and paste a warning like this are almost always a sign that it’s not true. Every single time I’ve checked to find out if the person actually received a friend request from me, it’s turned out that wasn’t the case. Someone just sent them the message and they forwarded it.
It’s not a very nice thing to tell a friend that someone is impersonating them on Facebook unless you know it to be true. There are specific steps to take if someone is pretending to be you on Facebook.
Now there is some truth in this statement, you should never accept a friend request from someone you’re already friends with. You can’t send friend requests to your friends. Period. If you suspect it might be a genuine request; perhaps a friend got locked out of their account, you could try messaging them and asking them to tell you something that only your real friend would know. But 99.9% of the time, the request is a fake.
If someone is actually impersonating you online, here’s what you or any of your friends can do about the request. Go to that person’s profile.
Instead of accepting or deleting the friend request, choose the three-dot menu for more.
Choose Give feedback or report this profile.
Select Pretending to be someone or Fake account.
You’ll be asked who the faker is pretending to be. Type in the friend’s name (or your name if it’s you.)
You’ll be able to select from your current friends list.
Facebook will then look into the account. They are usually removed within a day or two.
Don’t forward things you don’t know to be true just because someone tells you to, okay?