Facebook fraudulent account?

gayleygoo

Hi there, sorry I wasn't sure where to put this but here seems as good a place as any!

My OH has never set up a FB account, he detests the idea of it. He is barely technologically able enough to even do such a thing, I still have to help him log into emails and checks he's doing stuff right when he's buying online sometimes!

A year or so ago, he started getting facebook emails in Norwegian, which he doesn't speak, and he ignored them thinking they were spam or something, until he checked and realised there was a FB account set up with his email address. There was no profile pics or any information, just comments in Norwegian. He took them to his mum (who is orginally from Norway, handily enough), and she said all the comments from women saying "stop messaging me/leave me alone/I don't know who you are" etc. Concerened that this was all coming to his email address, a friend recommended he change the password on the account so no-one else could access it and so we did. He requested the account be deleted as he'd never set it up, but of course that's impossible. He is still getting Norwegian messages from other accounts and these show up on our friends pages too. We don't know anyone else who speaks Norwegian and have no idea how the account got there.

He thinks it may have been set up by FB as a way of luring him into it - he had no choice but to change the password to his own so no-one else could claim to be him on the account. Has anyone any ideas or experience here? Can he insist that FB remove it entirely? It doesn't look good on him to have those comments there, and in any case it is fraud as he didn't set it up.

ankspon

Don't sign in to facebook,easy.

silkyuk9

When you set up a FB account dont you have to activate it from your email address? Its a strange one but again if its showing up on your friends account are they 'friends' of this other person to see messages? FB is the end of the world as we know it, causes more trouble than anythnig I know, ive seen it at work girls !!!!!ing over things that have been said in the heat of the moment. I dont know FB wow

waddler_8

gayleygoo wrote: »

A year or so ago, he started getting facebook emails in Norwegian, which he doesn't speak, and he ignored them thinking they were spam or something, until he checked and realised there was a FB account set up with his email address. There was no profile pics or any information, just comments in Norwegian. He took them to his mum (who is orginally from Norway, handily enough)...

One hell of a coincidence.

SAHD_Jim

gayleygoo wrote: »

He thinks it may have been set up by FB as a way of luring him into it - he had no choice but to change the password to his own so no-one else could claim to be him on the account.

It is highly unlikely that FB, with over a billion users is going to be taking the effort to get people to join this way and then face the flak when it inevitably comes to light.

What is far more likely is one of the following:

Someone signed up to pretend to be him
Someone signed him up as a joke
He signed up and has forgotten he did so

Also, if someone genuinely wanted to be fraudulent, they probably wouldn't have used his email address for the obvious reason that, as you have said, he has now taken control of the account.

I know a teacher whose pupils set an account up pretending to be him and used it to poke fun at him, but they used an email that they controlled.

Bottom line is if he genuinely didn't set it up then he should report this to Facebook and either way, if he doesn't want the account he can have it deleted.

Enterprise_1701C

I would suggest that he also changes the password to his email account.

gayleygoo

I know the idea that FB would be making up accounts seems a little far-fetched! Possibly someone has a similar email address as him as maybe they got it wrong, although I'm not sure how that would account for activating the profile etc, all the settings are in Norwegian.

It is a very strange coincidence that his mum is norwegian, but she has no idea how to use FB either, nor does she even know her son's email address (nor do any of his friends, he never uses his email account, only to buy stuff online) She's not technologically savvy, and I'm sure she wouldn't have done it as a joke.

We have asked for FB to delete it. They replied that they have done so. It is still there, and the comments still get added to the page and he recieves emails notifications of it all.

societys_child

Permanently delete it:

http://www.wikihow.com/Permanently-Delete-a-Facebook-Account

BUT if anyone logs in within 14 days it will be re-activated!
So if you're logging in . . .

You could try changing the password, then deleting and don't log in!

vuvuzela

If he can access it then he could set up an different email account, set that as the default address for his facebook account, log out of both then ignore it.

Elle7

Perhaps FB did delete it? You can't permanently delete a FB account, it can be reactivated by logging in within 2 weeks.

You may have changed the password, but passwords aren't hard to hack, and you don't mention changing his email account password? They'll have access to this, so they'll need to change it.

To be honest, this is very far fetched. Is there outgoing messages in the account, that these women are responding too? Or are the outgoing messages being deleted, leaving only the "leave me alone" comments?

When you contacted FB, did you explain that it is a fraudulent account set up using your email, or did you just ask for the account to be deleted? If you can convince them that the account is fake, they will properly delete it.

Make sure it isn't anyone in your house first though. FB keep a record of IP addresses, so if they match your home and someone there did set it up, you'll look very silly. Make sure the security is well set up too.

SAHD_Jim

Elle7 wrote: »

Perhaps FB did delete it? You can't permanently delete a FB account, it can be reactivated by logging in within 2 weeks.

You may have changed the password, but passwords aren't hard to hack, and you don't mention changing his email account password? They'll have access to this, so they'll need to change it.

To be honest, this is very far fetched. Is there outgoing messages in the account, that these women are responding too? Or are the outgoing messages being deleted, leaving only the "leave me alone" comments?

When you contacted FB, did you explain that it is a fraudulent account set up using your email, or did you just ask for the account to be deleted? If you can convince them that the account is fake, they will properly delete it.

Make sure it isn't anyone in your house first though. FB keep a record of IP addresses, so if they match your home and someone there did set it up, you'll look very silly. Make sure the security is well set up too.

Yep, after my friend had his fraudulent FB account deleted, his father swore blind that "someone" had also set one up in his name. He had ongoing comms with FB until he then found emails and "remembered" setting it up himself after all in order to see someone's holiday snaps.

We register for so many things online these days it is easy to forget what we have done...