Facebook Clones and T-Shirt Scammers: A Public Service Announcement

There is a singularly malicious type of scammer on Facebook, trying to get between bands and their fans. They clone accounts, creating dummies of actual musicians, then boldly march right into threads of those musicians to try to mis-direct people into... what? What's the actual scam? I'm not actually sure what the net result is, because I have not fallen for these scams, but it's a ripoff of some sort. 

Here are two cases in point from my own Facebook experience. 

Last March, I wrote about Powerclown, and responded to a post on Facebook wherein Matt Fiorito of that band was posting about a t-shirt design. Both Powerclown and the Dayglo Abortions had Lon-Chaney-themed t-shirts; I ended up buying three of them -- two for friends and one Dayglo shirt for myself. The one I got was actually my least favourite of the three, in fact -- but it was the only one in my size. This is the one I coveted (my loving this shirt is a bit of a digression from the scammer thing but let's appreciate some great punk shirts along the way, shall we?): 

This is another shirt from that series, mentioned in the comments, which I actually am probably on some level not "entitled" to, since I don't skate, though I utterly love this image. I think if Lon Chaney (here playing the Phantom of the Opera) were around, he'd be amused. Great designs, two of my favourite shirts of last year (this one had plumb sold out!). 

This morning, I woke up to see that (apparently) Matt had posted in the old thread, tagging myself and three other people who are presumably following him on Facebook (including Chris Walter), alerting them to a new t-shirt:

Now, I don't know what that actual shirt is; I am aware enough that this is a scam (and awake enough, at 6am) that I will not clink the link, because who knows what kind of malicious website it goes to: but I can tell y'all this -- it's not a Dayglo or Powerclown t-shirt and it doesn't benefit either band. Probably it's just some sort of ripoff Chinese t-shirt website -- that it's just some bottomfeeder hoping to divert business -- but I'm not risking my browser to see: I know from experience that a truly malicious website can do serious damage (had to completely re-install my OS on a previous computer, once, when my browser got hijacked; I know enough not to click on fishy - or, uh, phishy -- links; but I also know plenty of internet-naive people who would immediately just go, "Ooh, what's Matt's new shirt?" and click away). 

Now, scam artists selling shirts on FB are nothing new (a Film Noir group I'm in is constantly plagued by t-shirt sellers, despite the moderators constantly removing them). But where this behaviour gets more malicious is that the seller is actually pretending to be Matt Fiorito. If you click his name on the above (on Facebook -- the links are dead here, that's just a printscreen), what you get is this:

...which is a Bob Hanham photo of Matt, jumping. The scammer has gone through the trouble of actually creating a new profile for Matt, using Matt's name and Matt's photo... except wait a second: let's zoom in on that Friends list.

So, uh... Matt has only 9 Facebook friends and one of them is a Filipino princess? No, that's fishy. Plus I'm being invited to add him as a friend, but I'm already Facebook friends with him. Also, that profile photo? It's the only post this "Matt" has made, because... it's not Matt! 

Matt's actual account -- which this is not -- is completely safe, by the way. (He has over 2200 Facebook friends, posts going back years, an actual profile, etc). I've seen people comment in such cases that someone has been hacked, but they haven't been: they've been cloned. This website explains the difference: "Cloning occurs when someone creates a new account using your name, profile picture, and other publicly available information to impersonate you. The cloned account then sends friend requests to your contacts, often to deceive them into sharing personal information or to perpetrate scams."

Hacking also happens, but it's different: another person takes over your account. Bert Canete of Crummy had his old Bert Man account hacked, not cloned, with the person who took over his old account being allowed to operate with impunity by Facebook for a couple of years now, despite Bert having alerted Facebook to it, complaining on multiple occasions. Facebook has done nothing, while the "new" Bert Man has tried to exploit Bert's old friends list, pretending to be Bert... it's some shitty behaviour for sure). 

Here's another similar example, from Eric Drew Feldman (go flip over your Doc at the Radar Station, if you don't know who I mean: he's the guy with the curly hair in the centre). He's played with Beefheart, Pere Ubu, Frightwig, Snakefinger, and even FEAR, and has some sort of officially-acknowledged association with the Residents; guy has maybe the most interesting CV of anyone in rock and roll. This year he's on the road with Frank Black (there's a Toronto date in January, but the west coast dates so far are all California; I would love to see this show -- I actually enjoyed the one Frank Black gig I saw, solo at the Media Club, more than any of the three -- or was it four? -- times I saw the Pixies). 

 Again, Eric Drew Feldman's actual Facebook account is completely safe. He has not been hacked. But in the very thread where Eric announced this has a post from a cloned account: 

Look familiar? Even the t-shirt design is similar: something with wings. And again -- though I would not click the "store" link, which is likely malicious -- if you click the profile name, you get a nearly empty profile, which the scammer has gone through a bit more trouble to set up -- giving Eric a location, and allegedly "locking" the profile so that only friends can see Eric's posts. Again, a sleepy or naive person might just automatically click "add friend," especially if you thought you had previously been friends before. 

Except, again, this is not Eric Drew Feldman. His real account is not locked, we're already Facebook friends, etc. This is a cloned account put up by a scammer, which Facebook is apparently doing nothing about. An actual friend/ fan of Eric's commented on the fake post, too, not seemingly realizing or caring that this was a scam -- that there were TWO Eric Drew Feldman accounts being posted from in the same damn thread, one the actual person, and the other a bold-as-a-goat impersonator, walking right into a thread by the real person and posting a fake t-shirt ad.

Facebook -- Meta, whatever -- needs to do something about predatory, malign shit like this. It can't fall on the original profile owner to report it and complain about it, especially since, as Bert's experience with his hacker demonstrates, Facebook might not do a damn thing, despite multiple complaints. 

Meantime, if you're new to Facebook or so forth -- and I have friends, family, and students who are -- be aware: you can't trust what you see there, can't take any of it at, uh, "face" value. 

This has been a public service announcement from Alienated in Vancouver. And now I must check my snail rescue. 

POST-SCRIPT: Informative Medium article here, which is actually researched!!! https://medium.com/@Lindsey_Lee/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-the-facebook-t-shirt-scam-4c03951f0af2