Facebook - Fake Account (account set up in wife's name)

John1963

"Techie Stuff" seems to be the only category that fits this?

My wife's sister told her yesterday that she was getting Facebook friend requests from my wife but she does not have a Facebook account and has obviously not triggered any such request.  I have a Facebook account and found the profile in my wife's name.  The profile contains no personal information except my wife's name and date of birth. My wife (she is really worried) asked me to report the account and ask for it to be removed (she has no connection with Facebook or means to contact them herself).

I reported the profile as 'Fake' (it certainly is) but Facebook responded saying the account breaches no rules.  I've asked them to review but am unable to provide any details to demonstrate the issue (i.e. somebody is fraudulently pretending to be my wife).  I think it highly likely that I'll get nowhere.

In short, how on earth do I or my wife get Facebook to take action to address the issue before the situation gets worse. There's no obvious way of entering into dialogue with them? 

cymruchris

Best just warn all the friends you're connected with about the fake account not to enter into any dialogue. Facebook is utterly useless at dealing with anything like this. You can also get a number of your friends to report the account as fake. In terms of making fb do anything though - good luck.

John1963

cymruchris said:

Best just warn all the friends you're connected with about the fake account not to enter into any dialogue. Facebook is utterly useless at dealing with anything like this. You can also get a number of your friends to report the account as fake. In terms of making fb do anything though - good luck.

Thought as much - I was, forlornly, hoping for a silver bullet.

PHK

You need to get friends to report it as fake. 

You do need to be careful that it’s not someone with the same name as your wife. 

Is there anything else, have they used the any photos of your wife ?

marcia_

 Agree get as many friends as possible to report as fake, they then pay more attention 

GDB2222

Not very nice, but what’s the downside for the op or his wife? I can see that friends might be misled, but the op is going to warn them. 

Grumpy_chap

John1963 said:

The profile contains no personal information except my wife's name and date of birth.

How has that been sufficient to determine that this is a fake account?

I suspect that, for the majority of us, there is another (or several other) person(s) out there sharing name and DoB.  Obviously, Jane Smith will have more alike characters than Hyacinth Bucket, but there are probably still duplicates in the ether.

The FB will then see the new name, look at other sites, and send links to people that are connected by the algorithm.  

Brie

I would suggest also your wife checking her credit reports over the coming months and perhaps warning her banks on the off chance of identity fraud. 

Vitor

You could try the GDPR approach and request deletion - Your right to get your data deleted | ICO

victor2

Could the wife's sister accept the "fake" account as a friend and then see what other details can be revealed?

It could actually be someone with the same name and birthday, but does seem odd how they've identified the sister (who presumably has a different surname) as a possible friend.

Neil49

Grumpy_chap said:

John1963 said:

The profile contains no personal information except my wife's name and date of birth.

How has that been sufficient to determine that this is a fake account?

I suspect that, for the majority of us, there is another (or several other) person(s) out there sharing name and DoB.  Obviously, Jane Smith will have more alike characters than Hyacinth Bucket, but there are probably still duplicates in the ether.

The FB will then see the new name, look at other sites, and send links to people that are connected by the algorithm.  

I think the 2nd line of the original post answers that question 

"My wife's sister told her yesterday that she was getting Facebook friend requests from my wife but she does not have a Facebook account"