In recent years, many Facebook users have had the problem of having someone they don’t know setup an imposter Facebook account in their name with their picture, pretending to be them. Usually one finds out this is going on because someone they know gets a friend request from the imposter account.
If you are someone having this experience, follow these steps:
- Ask your friend to go to the imposter’s Facebook page, and copy the website address for that Facebook account page.
- Have your friend send you the website address from step #1.
- Send the link to a few of your tech savvy Facebook friends and tell them: “Hey, someone is pretending to be me on Facebook. Here is the link. Visit the page and please report them as ‘pretending to be someone I know’ so that Facebook can delete the imposter account. Thanks!”
The instructions above are designed to expedite the process of having the fake account removed. If you don’t follow these instructions, the fake account may end up getting deleted anyway if it’s reported by enough people or if it violates Facebook guidelines in some other way. However, it’s best to have the imposter account deleted sooner than later.
How to Report Imposter Accounts
Instructions for how to report imposter accounts are below in 6 steps. These are from 2016, so the current method may look a little different, but the general principle is the same. Click here to learn more.
