Dear Old People on the Internet:

 

...and various other tech-challenged cyber citizens.  I don't mean this to sound rude so bear with me, but I get soooo tired of seeing people say "I got HaCkEd!" when they clearly got cloned.  That is, someone literally copy/pasted all your public photos into a new account, slapped your name on it & started following all the same pages, groups & "friends" you do.  They can only do this, of course, if those settings on your real page are set to public. 

Fact:  Give me a link to your Facebook or Insta page & I could set up a clone account in less than 10 minutes.  I could probably even trick some of your real friends into accepting my friend request, not because I'm particularly sneaky but because this trick doesn't require a lot of finesse--it's low-effort mimicry, and most of the people behind it are professional full-time criminals from far-flung locations in India, Africa, Dubai & others.  

Where most important privacy settings reside on Faceplace.

The "hacked vs. cloned" thing is not a matter of mere semantics: most cloning victims truly don't know the difference & believe their accounts have been breached in some way, telling each other to "change their passwords" or similar.  And have you noticed how many of the cloning targets are over 60?  Why do you think that might be?  I'll tell you:  Because this demographic is the "wealthy retiree" demographic, sure, but also because they're notoriously tech-challenged & easy to scam.

This is a multi-pronged scam with different end goals, but the main objective is bleeding your financial accounts & lines of credit dry.  Whether by identity theft, romance scams, imitation of your real life friends/others in cloning ("grandparent")  scams or phone calls where fake tech support criminals from India gain access to your device & everything you've ever entered or saved on it (documents, autofill passwords/CC info, photos, vids, browser history, bookmarks, etc), these criminals don't give up once you're on their "sucker lists." 

Thankfully you needn't be a tech-whizz to protect yourself from losing it all.  The link at the end of this article gives detailed-ass instructions on how to turn your account into Fort Knox & keep scammers at bay.  Read on to find out why you'd wanna do that.





Why Bother?

Your cluelessness could cost you everything you've ever worked for.

So why would anyone bother targeting little old you?  Because they already have everything they need to steal your identity & are looking for that final piece, be it your mother's maiden name or a word that sounds like "yes" in your voice on the phone.  All your other identifying info, from your phone number, address, the names of your last 30 years of roommates, political affiliation & even detailed maps and photos of your house are readily available online through sites like Radaris, FastPeopleSearch.com, Google Maps & the Dark Web. They may even have your debit or credit card info, but how?

Every time a corporation like Netflix or Sony has a data breach, all the debit card/PIN numbers or passwords you've entered to shop or pay bills on their site are leaked & auctioned off to the highest bidding criminal, usually ending up on the Dark Net. This unsettling factoid doesn't get the media attention it deserves, and the wealthy billionaire CEOs of these companies don't get nearly enough scrutiny & nearly no legal accountability for their lack of tech security measures.  Massive data breaches happen almost weekly.  Here are recent ones from 2025.

As a result of all these ACTUAL hacks, there are huge lists of "high-value" targets floating around:  people with elderly-sounding names like "Katherine," "Pearl" & "Bessie" in wealthy white countries that these scammers target relentlessly on the phone alllll day from warehouses in Dubai, Jamaica, Pakistan, India, the Philippines & more in an attempt to trick them into giving over access to that last puzzle piece of personal info.  (My own late loved one coughed up over $28,000 to Jamaican phone scammers despite not even having dementia--she was just lonely).  They sometimes impersonate tech support or telemarketers, both of which used to be a big thing in the '80s & '90s. 

You may think telling them sternly to put you on the "no-call list" is sufficient, but it's not because they're not telemarketers, they're criminals.  There IS no "no-call" list for criminals. And they sit packed in hot warehouses like sardines all day and night, training to hack into your online accounts, your smartphone/computer, your financial accounts & your very life.  Nigeria and Ghana are the biggest offenders in the "romance scams" category, posing as celebrities or lovestruck lotharios stranded overseas who just need you to front them some $$$ to help get them home, "no really babe I swear."  The phone & online scams are often linked--once you've been targeted for one & do the wrong thing, they put you on a "sucker list" and they keep coming at you from every angle.  Do not engage. 
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However and wherever they operate, this is the takeaway message:  There's no getting your money back once it's gone.  Neither law enforcement, social media bigwigs nor your bank can or will help you because the money is converted to untraceable cryptocurrency instantly once in the hands of criminals.  You've been warned.  The amount of money people have lost to these phone & internet scammers is nauseating & the response from authorities is always the same:  "Sorry, nothing we can do.  You shouldn't have answered that shady phone call/email/message."  Even with bank alerts set up on withdrawals, victims were not notified as their accounts were drained of hundreds of thousands of dollars.  (See: "60 Minutes Australia" episode in the linked article below).
 



How the Cloned Account Scam Works

Knowledge is power when it comes to tech scams

The cloned account scam is particularly pernicious because scammers pose as your IRL friend, waiting for them to go out of town for real & then messaging or calling you from spoofed phone numbers made to look like it's really your friend.  They do this late at night to catch you off guard, claiming to be held hostage, needing a huge ransom to be freed or else they'll be tortured or killed.  Imagine waking up to a frantic phone call from someone claiming to be your childhood bestie or aunt, calling from what your caller ID says is their number, and being told they're going to be shot in the head if you don't wire them thousands of dollars immediately.  Maybe you wouldn't fall for it--great.  But these con artists are thinking up new schemes all the time so it's best not to chance it.  

It all ties back into online privacy, which doesn't exist.  But that doesn't mean you have to fall prey to these predatory monsters.  By the time they're cloning your account or calling on the phone, all they need is that final piece of info, be it your mom's maiden name, the street you grew up on or just a recording of you saying what sounds like "yes".   Then they can open lines of credit in your name, take out loans in your name, drain your business or checking account or otherwise royally screw up your finances forever.  This is how identity theft happens, not by desperate Dumpster divers digging through your shredded mail & piecing it back together like a jigsaw puzzle. 

While you may not come right out and state things like your mom's maiden name on your Facebook page, scammers can deduce it based on your half-siblings' last names or that post you were tagged in that DID share it outright.  Or that "Hannity Family Reunion" group you just joined that happens to be public.  Or... hopefully you get the point.  This is the problem with letting strangers see your friends' posts on your wall--you can't predict or control what your friends post, and you never know just who might be watching or what info they're looking for.   👀

And so I beg you again, people in the 60+ demographic:  restrict the privacy settings on your social media accounts for everyone's sake.  Even if you don't care about YOUR online safety, do it for your friends, kids & everyone else connected to you online.  It's 2025--there's no excuse for letting these 3rd world scumbags steal your hard-earned savings or weaponize your trusting nature, loneliness or generosity & use it against you. 

There's nothing to be gained by befriending total strangers online or leaving your page open to lookie loos.  If you wanna flirt/date or meet new friends, join Meetup.com or sign up for a dating site (but beware because these Nigerian romance fakers are just as prevalent there).  Reserve personal social media accounts for people you know in real life, and make sure you're not accepting duplicate friend requests from the "same" person. 

This is a finely-tuned con designed to take advantage of the good nature & naivete of older people who may not understand "how all this works" yet "don't see how it could hurt" to keep refriending the same person or whatever. It's NOT the same person--it's Nigerian identity thieves posing as your friends via the cloning scam.  Oh yeah, some dabble in "dark magic", killing people & stealing their organs to use in their rituals.  All in the hopes of getting rich at YOUR expense.  If that isn't enough to scare you into action, IDK what would be. 

Just because you can't imagine something doesn't mean it's not a threat.  Always choose "safe" over "sorry," especially when the stakes are this high.  We're talking about the money you worked your whole life for--your nest egg that was going to carry you through your golden years...  your kid's college fund or inheritance.  Answering the wrong phone call or clicking a phishing link ONE TIME is all it takes to lose everything and that's just not worth the risk. 

Huge thanks to all the victims of "digital kidnapping"/online impersonation  who take the time to warn potential victims they're being conned.  You're doing a good  thing.  🫶🏽  I suspect it'll get much harder to even report catfish  accounts as fake in the era of AI when bot-generated profile pics replace these stolen (copy/pasted) ones.  Guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it (or not).  Right, Zuck?  

....RIGHT?!

🔌  Here's the promised article on exactly how to secure your accounts.  Written for tech beginners in easy-to-follow steps.  🖥