Users, Be Cautious of Friend Requests

springlering62
springlering62 Posts: 10,287 Member
in Introduce Yourself

Ladies and Gentlemen,


please be careful with friend requests and also other posters here with “hot bod” profile pics


Romance and bitcoin scammers abound on all sites, and MFP is no different.

It used to be fairly easy to weed out the creeps using the old Friends Newsfeed, but that’s been discontinued for over a year now.

In the past couple months, I’ve gotten 30 friend requests, all with a common theme Nice looking guys, profile pics are head or upper torso shots of them in uniform, with a kid(s) or dog, work environment , or even a comforting, reassuring pickup truck in the background.


Every last one of them, bar one who is a known creeper here anyway, is a fake profile pic and a scam account. They will strike up a conversation and try to lure you off MFP to WhatsApp, telegram or other messaging apps.


I know this isn’t you, but having been obese myself, I understand you may be lonely, trusting, and happy to have such a nice person reach out to you

Run screaming!


if you must engage, screenshot their profile pic and do a google image search You’ll find the picture is probably associated with multiple names, and often see “Scammer!” warnings from users on other sites.


Google their names and rank as well One fellow doing multiple posts here claims to be a colonel. No colonel by that name comes up at all Ditto for folks with “Dr” and “Capt” (shows a photo of him in a cockpit) in their profile names.


Dona search and check their posting history on the boards, too. No posting history at all? Brand new user? Old account suddenly active? Did they just post seven copy+paste posts seeking friends? 🚩🚩🚩

They are creating every kind of honey pot to lure you in

Don’t be that person who falls for a scam.


We (other users) are here to help encourage you in your weight loss or weight gain process. It just kills me to see some of the posts I’ve seen recently from other users who’ve been taken advantage of.


This isn’t an MFp failing- this is a failing of us, hoping for the best from strangers, many of whom are literally held in digital slave camps in Myanmar or doing this from third world countries You’ve all heard the stories. Don’t BE the story!!! This is an awesome, wonderful, amazingly helpful site, but the same creatures crawl out from under rocks here as do on any other site.


if you get a scammer knocking on your door, report them.


Use your noggin!!!!!

Replies

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 38,098 Community Helper

    I agree with OP, and want to double underscore one thing she said:

    Report them.
    Report them.
    Report them.

    Don't just delete and block them. Report them to MFP via the Help function, by DM-ing one of the MFP staff, whatever is easy.

    One way MFP is UNLIKE other social media apps: MFP takes this seriously. They will act on these reports, deleting IDs, banning users, using some behind-the-scenes tools to try to keep them from coming back under a different ID (though that part is like playing whack-a-mole . . . but they do try). It may not be literally instant, because it's humans who follow up on reports, not machines; but IME it's pretty quick.

    MFP will not tell the creeper/scammer who reported them, and you'd better believe that creep has had multiple attempted victims, because that's why they're here. If you report the creeps, you help other users.

    You may never hear exactly what was done as a remedy, but I've gone back to look at profiles of some of the former creepers, and they're bye-bye gone.

    Report them.

  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 10,287 Member

    folks, my newest handsome male military friend request joined at 6:54am this morning, had already changed his user name once, and has already accumulated 43 friends in little more than 12 hours on the site.

    Even if he only has a tiny success rate, someone’s fixing to go to the cleaners.

    Please! Don’t let it be you!!!!

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