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Uninvited facebook friend

(52 Posts)
Elegran Tue 04-Jul-17 08:32:46

Discovered this morning that I had received a confirmation from a complete stranger of a Facebook friend request that I definitely DID NOT send them.

I unfriended him PDQ, but should I be worried that my FB account has been hacked to send this request?

MawBroon Tue 04-Jul-17 08:49:28

I suppose it MIGHT have been a genuine mistake where someone meant to request "friendship" with someone else with your name? Have you looked to see if she exists?

Elegran Tue 04-Jul-17 09:01:08

It wasn't a request, it was a confirmation of a request that (supposedly) I made so can't be someone of the same name. I don't think a mistake is possible in replying to a message, which makes me wonder.

And it wasn't a she, it was an American gent of mature years with a photo that looks very like all those self-styled American army generals.

Maybe it was a mistake to change my picture to one taken sixty years ago.

Stansgran Tue 04-Jul-17 09:09:07

Sounds dodgy to me.but I think Facebook is bad news anyway.

Maggiemaybe Tue 04-Jul-17 09:14:07

This happened to me a couple of times, Elegran, when my Facebook home page had a procession of people I might know - friends of friends - across the top whenever I opened it. I'm pretty certain now that I must have clicked on the friend request buttons without meaning to as I was scrolling past. It hasn't happened since I hid the mugshots.

Maggiemaybe Tue 04-Jul-17 09:18:02

His profile will show whether you have a mutual friend. If you haven't then, yes, it's come out of the blue and looks dodgy.

Elegran Tue 04-Jul-17 09:23:48

That must be it. My keyboard is non-functioning ever since I spilt a glassful onto it, so I have been rather clumsy manoeuvring round the screen and typing.

silverlining48 Tue 04-Jul-17 09:31:54

Thats the reason i have avoided fb but i do look at my husbands once in a while, just to keep up to date with what the chikdren are doing. I sometimes add comments and use my initial, but as these are always longer than my husbands they always know that its me. A d tell me i should join myself but
Very few of my very few friends use fb so i cant see the point of silver lining with a mere 5 friends! How uncool is that?

Elegran Tue 04-Jul-17 09:37:13

I think he must have been in that procession of "friends of friends" photos at the top of the page, and I have touched the photo on my way to some other link. Gone now and there don't seem to be any problems. I don't think he will be brokenhearted - he has hundreds of friends.

Teetime Tue 04-Jul-17 09:49:57

I get requests from these American Army Officers just delete and report it.

edsnana Tue 04-Jul-17 10:36:03

Me too, one said I look like a God fearing woman, whatever one of those looks like! I didn't take it as a compliment, this was after I'd messaged him to ask why I'd had the request as I didn't think I, or any of my friends knew him. For ages I had the Reiki symbol as my profile picture and had a friend request from an American who said he loved my work and had seen all my films. Turns out I share my name with a famous American actress!

MiniMouse Tue 04-Jul-17 10:36:23

Elegran do keep an eye on it! My account was hacked into and completely taken over about a year ago. It started just as yours has. Somehow, the hackers managed to block me from deleting the account, so I had to contact Facebook direct to have it shut down and then deleted. I was worried sick that it might have affected friends' accounts and emailed them via my normal email account.

My original account only had a handful of friends, as that's not what I use it for really, but when I was hacked I had literally thousands suddenly appear!!

GillT57 Tue 04-Jul-17 10:37:25

They are not good looking American Army officers they arefraudsters based inWest Africa(usually) and fish for women who may be lonely and susceptible and easy to fleece of their money. Many sad cases reported. Never accept friend requests from them

inishowen Tue 04-Jul-17 10:55:56

I get these friend requests from handsome American army officers too. I always delete them as they are scammers.

radicalnan Tue 04-Jul-17 10:59:31

I get puzzling e mails from 'Rusian women' who seemingly want to have sex with me....at my best I look like Winnie the Poo.....I don't open the e mails of course......

jessycake Tue 04-Jul-17 11:04:33

I accidentally send a friend request to someone once , it was a friend of a Facebook friend. I think I accidentally swiped people you may know .i only realised when they accepted

blueberry1 Tue 04-Jul-17 11:06:01

If it was a confirmation of a request that you supposedly made,something fishy is going on.Have you checked your privacy settings and changed your password in case of hacking? Better still,close your account-I did and I don't miss it at all!

glammanana Tue 04-Jul-17 11:11:42

I have heard of plenty of women who have lost thousands of £s being scammed by these "American Officers" they prey on ladies who are lonely and believe their messages,some where down the line they will ask for money to release some funds for him to pay for an imaginary relative to have medical bills paid etc so give all these friends a wide berth ladies.

downtoearth Tue 04-Jul-17 11:19:32

I got caught out snooping on my sons new girlfriend,that generated a friend request so she new I had looked ,but freakily my name and my sons name is that of her ex partner and his mum...we have since met and laughed about it so no harm done grin

valeriej43 Tue 04-Jul-17 11:31:09

This happens sometimes, its easy to let your cursor swipe something unintentionally
Also sometimes when you realise the language has changed,there is a list of languages further down, mine has sometimes gone to Polish or French, but easy to rectify,just click back on English

Legs55 Tue 04-Jul-17 11:33:22

radicalnan I get those too & P***s Enlargementconfused, they do luckily go into my Spam box, permanently deleted immediately....

I don't accept any new FB friends requests unless they are friends with one of my select friends all others are blocked.

yellowcanary Tue 04-Jul-17 11:48:51

I cannot understand why and how women (and some men I believe) are so stupid to pay money to someone they haven't met before - "give me money and I will come and see you" "I cannot come because my family is ill" - forgive me for being cynical, I am on my own but would never fall for this rubbish - it is obviously a con. I know people want company but you do not have to pay thousands for it

I also get these FB requests - and ignore them

jollyg Tue 04-Jul-17 12:19:32

Facebook the spawn of the Devil. As is social media.

Im afraid I use good old scottish scepticism .

My name is not Mark Zuperburg.

cavaliermum Tue 04-Jul-17 12:45:05

I've had a few FB requests from the silver fox American general type guys
Checked their profiles
Nothing
No friends , no pics
Friend of friend fell for what turned out to be a scam and sent him £1000 to come over to see her
He never .....

Elegran Tue 04-Jul-17 13:40:56

This one wasn't a silver fox, just an ordinary-looking slightly overweight balding bloke. Most of his friends were interchangeable ordinary guys too.