Facebook officials have warned of a new viral hoax message that is fooling users into thinking there is a problem with their account.
The fake message claims your account has been cloned – meaning someone has created a new account using your name, photos and other information to impersonate you on Facebook.
It encourages you to forward the message to your Facebook friends to warn them of the mimic account.
The scam message reads: ‘Hi…I actually got another friend request from you yesterday…which I ignored so you may want to check your account.
‘Hold your finger on the message until the forward button appears…then hit forward and all the people you want to forward too…I had to do the people individually. Good Luck!’
Facebook said there is no virus attached to the message, and advised users to simply delete it if they receive it.
The message reads as above. Facebook officials say to just delete the message and that there is not a virus attached to it
A spokesperson said: ‘We’ve heard that some people are seeing posts or messages about accounts being cloned on Facebook.
‘It takes the form of a “chain mail” type of notice.
‘We haven’t seen an increase in incoming reports of impersonation (cloned accounts).
Facebook officials say people are being targeted by a hoax chain mail warning users that their account has been cloned and instructing them to pass the message along (stock image)
‘The volume of these types of posts isn’t a good measure for how often impersonation is actually happening.’
Facebook cloning is when someone creates an account and steals your photos and personal information.
They then send out friend requests to your existing friend list to gather more personal information, or to send out scam messages from the faked account.
If you think you’re a victim of cloning, you should check and see if there is a duplicate of your account.
You can flag cloned accounts to Facebook via the ‘report’ feature.
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