Last September, I wrote a post about how scammers had been using my photos to lure women into online, romantic relationships for the purpose of ‘borrowing’ or extorting money. Since that time, the scams have continued. I get, on average, one new report a day from women (and occasionally men) who have been tricked, or nearly tricked, into sending money. In many cases, individuals have reported forming deep attachments or even falling in love with these scammers. This has been a frustrating predicament that has been going on for many years now. In this post, I thought I would share a few of the things that I’ve learned about the scams, the scammers, and their potential victims. Here we go.
- These scams are likely not perpetrated by a single individual. In fact, they are most likely perpetrated by groups of individuals, or even gangs, most likely situated in Nigeria or Ghana. These are typically known as “romance scams“, and I feel strongly that recognizing and understanding these types of scams are essential skills for digitally literate individuals.
- These scams take place over a number of popular social networking and communication tools. While I’ve taken down nearly 50 fake Facebook profiles, I’ve also had my photos appear in profiles set up on dating sites such as eHarmony, Christian Mingle, Match.com, and Plenty Of Fish. There are also dozens of Skype accounts that have been created using my photos. The ones that concern me the most are those that actually use my name and photos. For instance, if you search ‘alec couros’ on Skype, you will get five accounts under my name. Only one of them is mine (‘aleccouros’ is legit, btw), and three have photos of me. It worries me that my friends or professional contacts may connect to one of the fraudulent accounts.
Searching ‘alec couros’ on Skype gets these results
- These fake accounts are often deliberately difficult to detect because the scammers have blocked you from them. For instance, today I let Dean Shareski know that there were several Facebook accounts set up with his photos and name. When I sent him the URL of the Facebook search, he couldn’t see any of them. So, I screen captured what I saw, and sent it to him. That was the first he knew of these particular profiles. So, to better detect these scammer accounts, I would advise that you ask others to actively search for you, or alternately, search your own name on social networks like Facebook when you are logged out. Just know that the latter method may be limited depending on the accounts’ privacy settings.
- Detection of these scams requires critical thought, a healthy skepticism, and active digital literacy. I speak frequently about the power of social networks in learning, and I think that a big part of being a digital resident is trusting people that you may not know entirely well. It’s OK to talk to strangers. In fact, it’s integral to the health of a knowledge society. However, we need to increasingly carry in our minds that bit of doubt that the people we meet online (or anywhere, I suppose), may not be the people they appear to be, even when presented with what we sense as good evidence. Case in point, several of the individuals who came forward mentioned that they had ‘talked to me’ on video via Skype. As they thought back to those times, in retrospect, they now believed that the scammers had remixed Youtube videos and played them over Skype so it would appear that they were chatting with me. This still blows my mind. And, on the more positive side of things, most of the victims who found me did so through reverse Google image search. If you don’t know what this is, I’ve created a short screencast describing the process. Share this with your kids, your students, your colleagues, and your friends.
- These profiles are really hard to take down. Every social networking site seems to have a different process. Some require you to send identification such as a passport or driver’s license. Others have a series of online forms and verification systems. Some sites require (paid) membership to see or report the fake profiles. This becomes very problematic and a huge waste of time. And, I should mention that Facebook’s system for reporting these fraudulent accounts is utterly insufficient, bordering on broken. When I report an account on Facebook, sometimes it is taken down instantly. Sometimes, it takes weeks. Sometimes I perform that exact same process on the exact type of account (e.g., an account with my photos and my exact name) and the results will be different; rejected sometimes, accepted others. Facebook needs to fix this. Adding an explicit ‘romance scams’ option to its reporting system would be a place to start.
Likely, what I’ve learned the most throughout this predicament is that we need better systems for identity verification. I don’t actually like proposing this because I’m a strong proponent for rights to anonymity on the web. But, there must be a way to allow for anonymity and to also build mechanisms in place for identity verification where necessary. Ideas, anyone? Maybe my life’s work is in this problem somewhere.
Now, please share this post (or the key ideas within) with your colleagues, parents, friends, children, students, etc. It might give them that important moment of pause when most necessary. Thanks for reading.
The other thing your post made me think it that people would benefit from a read of Will Ferguson’s “419”, which puts a human face on the African scam industry.
Identity Validation is a problem that technology has begun to attempt to solve, with stuff like Keybase: https://keybase.io
Thanks so much Alec for this interesting article. I would like that some day, soon, this problem is solved so people do not find so unprotected in networks
Thanks so much Alec for this article. I found my FB picture profile being used as I had included in flickr: http://rationalparliament.wordpress.com/2014/01/12/do-you-know-the-truth-about-immigration-or-anything/.
Though my image in the article shows credit, the writer doesn’t link it to my Flickr account, so I would think this is not correct. This whole thing has been a concern for some time to me. But maybe it’s time to reflect on how to be connected and open and still learn how to protect our identity.
Wow! This is the first time I’ve heard of this happening (yes, I live in a bit of a bubble). I can definitely see the need for stronger identity verification online, but that makes me a bit uncomfortable as it gives more of a “Big Brother” feeling to the web. This makes me think realize how much we need to accept that the world is now completely different from what it was 20 years ago and so we can’t have the same expectations to privacy and protection. What i’m completely unsure of is what we can, or should, expect. As a teacher, I feel my role right now is to bring awareness of vulnerabilities such as this type of scam, and give students the tools they need to protect themselves. Thanks for sharing this – I wouldn’t have been aware of the issue otherwise!
Can’t say that I’m surprised. I was particularly interested in the reason(s) why you could see multiple accounts of Dean but he could not. Scammers are now targeting doctors in the US and filing fraudulent tax returns! Although the photos of you and your children (assuming those are your children!) are really nice, I wonder how wise it is to do so these days? I think at this point that horse has left the barn, but for the rest of us……
His new name on Facebook is michaeldeeds@yahoo.com
Michael Deeds michaeldeeds736@yahoo.com
Thanks! I’ve reported this account. Four new ones have been reported in the last 48 hours.
Yes a good article in deed you shared here thanks for it.
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It’s very interesting to assume that most scammers are situated in Africa. I guess people having a certain “face” or look makes people feel bad. The last European bust on scammers who people assumed were African were in East Europe. Fascinating article but let’s not perpetuate stereotypes. It’s nice to think dark faces are evil but honestly, there are more internet scammers in Europe and Asia.
@anonymous-PhD – The majority of the victims – those that did the research – discovered that these scammers were from Nigeria. No stereotype here. Phone numbers, bank accounts, IP addresses, etc., all point to the same direction.
The “real” Alec Couros is someone I’m lucky to know. As I just wrote to Alan (@cogdog) in response to his reflections on a similar situation: Great writing, and very helpful in our ongoing efforts to foster what @hrheingold so aptly calls “crap detection.” Thanks for helping so many of us be part of the solution rather feeling as if there is nothing we can do. I believe these positive efforts at facilitating digital literacy/digital citizenship substantially strengthen our communities.
I have had a recent experience with this scam. He uses email as billy09cc@aol.com. He had me convinced that he was who said he was. We got on Skype and showed your video and made it look as if you were doing the talking. I have hired a PI to find him and find who he really is. I don’t understand how he thinks he is going to get money, I told him I would never give money to anyone outside my family. He uses the names Branford Bill and Bill Chavez says he lives in NC and has NC phone number. It will be interesting to see what the PI finds out.
Hi Alec,
Or as I have FONDLY got to know you as Allen Mernard, residing in Cape Town South Africa. You don’t know this, but you own a Company called http://www.mernardscontracting.com. Congratulations, you are now into Road and Railway Structural Engineering. Wow, and you did not even have to Study (lucky you). You are also registered on Linkedin South Africa. Actually, at the moment, I feel a complete fool, as I always thought I was relatively intelligent, but current events have disproved this! The irony, my gut was shouting, but I just really fell in love …….. So Dumb!
The upside, at least I know I have been scammed! The scammer does not know, that I know! The question is what to do from now?
Chez
Hi Alec,
Or as I have FONDLY got to know you as Allen Mernard, residing in Cape Town South Africa. You don’t know this, but you own a Company called http://www.mernardscontracting.com. Congratulations, you are now into Road and Railway Structural Engineering. Wow, and you did not even have to Study (lucky you). You are also registered on Linkedin South Africa (with your smiling face as proof) as Allen Mernard
Actually, at the moment, I feel a complete fool, as I always thought I was relatively intelligent, but current events have disproved this! The irony, my gut was shouting, but I just really fell in love …….. So Dumb!
The upside, at least I know I have been scammed! The scammer does not know, that I know! The question is what to do from now?
The mobilie no. that I have been corresponding with is as per True Caller App is registered too Freddy Ngwa (Ngebi) +27(South Africa) 074-029-7802
Chez
thank you so much this has been great help as I’m sorting why my daughter decides to get up of her life and join Imnm the rapper in Detroit.
Hey Alec, your piece is very informative. Thank you for taking the time to write it. I did a reverse image on someone who is a person I accepted as a fb friend. I didn’t find anything suspicious from the reverse image. In less than a month he is wanting to meet me and says i’m the woman of his dreams. Another thing that sets off red flags is that on his fb page he has pictures and likes from people but no comments on any of his many pictures. This doesn’t seem right. where else can I go for help on trying to figure if this person is legite?