Fake Facebook profile leaves Nelson auctioneer stressed and worried
Martin De Ruyter/Stuff
Lipscombe Auction House owner Warwick Savage with a fake Facebook account using his name he is trying to get taken down.
Auctioneer Warwick Savage didn’t have a personal Facebook profile.
But someone pretending to be him set one up, and that person, or persons stole his identity and amassed 1500 friend by Friday – the vast majority of whom were none the wiser the man on the screen was not who they thought he was.
The profile first came to the attention of the Nelson auctioneer late last week, when a friend of his stepdaughter’s commented that she had accepted Savage’s friend request: “and she said ‘he doesn’t have a Facebook page. He doesn’t have a Facebook profile’. So all of a sudden it came to the forefront.”
What was bizarre about the fake profile is how sophisticated it was: few of Savage’s close friends twigged when sent a friend request.
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The photos had been taken off the website of his business, Lipscombe Auction House, and the posts, promoting auctions, appeared legitimate. Lipscombe Auction House has a genuine Facebook page for the business and the fake and genuine pages looked similar.
On Friday after queries from Stuff meta removed the Facebook page for “for violating our policies”.
A spokesperson said it was “committed to safeguarding the integrity of our services, and worked hard to protect our community from fake accounts and other inauthentic behaviour.”
It continued to invest in AI to improve its enforcement and strengthen its review systems it said.
SUPPLIED/Nelson Mail
Someone has set up a fake account of auctioneer Warwick Savage and despite people contacting Facebook and telling them it was fake the social media company won’t take it down.
Savage was happy the page had finally been removed but frustrated it had taken so long for it to have occurred.
Savage had reported the profile to the police, who referred him to Netsafe. Multiple friends also wrote to Facebook asking for the page to be removed, only to receive the message that “ultimately, we decided not to take the profile down”.
“We take action on profiles that pose a danger to other people or that are harmful to the community,” the Facebook Support message read.
Savage said there should be more accountability from social media.
The profile appeared to have been uploaded on November 26, 2022, but the majority of the account activity had been this year, Savage said.
Several people who accepted his friend requests were Nelson City councillors, and other well known people in Nelson.
SUPPLIED/Nelson Mail
Someone has set up a fake account of Lipscombe Auction house owner Warwick Savage on facebook that now has over 1100 friends using information from his legitimate website.
Before the media got involved Savage said there hadn’t appeared to be much interest from Facebook in doing anything about it.
“And I think it would be a huge worry for anybody. Because basically, they’ve stolen my identity.”
Savage said he was “obviously” concerned about reputational damage. But he was also concerned about having his business targeted.
“It all looks very harmless at the moment, but why would a person bother creating this to not have an end objective? Are messages going out to people there who are friends that aren’t nice messages?”
The situation has left him feeling “stressed”, he said, and particularly worried about the possibility of the person using his name posting something nasty.
“I don’t want to be going around trying to defend myself and Lipscombe’s to 1000 people,” he said.
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Källlänk
Facebook clone scam: Imposters copy names, photos, hawk goods, ask for ‘deposits’
Some scammers trawl social media for profiles to impersonate, then pose as the victim, hawk goods online, and request bank deposits. Photo / Getty Images
Kiwis have been targeted in a scam where fraudsters clone real Facebook profiles and ask for bank account deposits.
The scam involved people copying a real Facebook user’s name and photograph.
In one recent local
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