Someone Duplicated My Account
It happens quite often. Someone pulls photos off of your Facebook or Instagram account and creates another account in your name using your photo. No, you didn’t actually get hacked, but this is a serious problem.
What’s the difference?
When someone duplicates your account they are pretending to be you. When your actual account has been hacked on Facebook, you need to check who has access to your account by reviewing the logins. If any of them are not you, report them immediately, then log out of all sessions.
Next, log back in and change your password, and set up two-factor authentication.
You can find the how-to’s on most of the above information in the Security and Login page section of your accounts.
Why Does Anyone Do This
One reason someone pretends to be you is to trick your friends into giving up their information. They may even try to get money out of them for a fake cause or need.
On Facebook sending out a “friend request” from the duplicate account will set off red flags to some of your friends, but others just think “Oh I must not have friended their page” when in reality they did and just don’t remember. This happens more frequently than you can imagine.
Whichever is the case, being duplicated or being hacked, you need to move on it right away. Also, you need to let your friends on the platform know but after you have reported the issue to Facebook or Instagram.
There are two settings on Facebook to help stop this from happening.
- Who can see the people, pages and lists you follow? Only me
- Who can see your friends list? Only me
These can both be found under Settings and Privacy and then Privacy.
Instagram doesn’t have this same feature but does explain what to do in a situation like this by following the link below.
More assistance can be found on these links:
What to do if this happens on Instagram: https://help.instagram.com/370054663112398
What to do if this happens on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/help/174210519303259
If you find out you have this problem and can’t get through the steps to fix it, please give me a call. Versus waiting until a friend notices you re-friended them you can always search yourself on the platforms making sure there is only one of the exact you!
