http://articles.cnn.com/2009-02-05/tech/facebook.impostors_1_facebook-spokesman-barry-schnitt-cnn-friends-track?_s=PM:TECH
February 05, 2009|From John Sutter and Jason Carroll CNN
Fears of impostors are increasing as Facebook’s membership grows.
Without his input, Bryan Rutberg’s Facebook status update — the way friends track each other — suddenly changed on January 21 to this frightening alert:
“Bryan NEEDS HELP URGENTLY!!!”
His online friends saw the message and came to his aid. Some posted concerned messages on his public profile — “What’s happening????? What do you need?” one wrote. Another friend, Beny Rubinstein, got a direct message saying Rutberg had been robbed at gunpoint in London and needed money to get back to the United States.
So, trying to be a good friend, Rubinstein wired $1,143 to London in two installments, according to police in Bellevue, Washington.
Meanwhile, Rutberg was safe at home in Seattle.
Rubinstein told CNN he misses the money, but it’s perhaps more upsetting to feel tricked by someone who impersonated his friend on Facebook, a social-networking site where millions of friends converse freely online.
“It’s an invasion of your whole privacy, who your friends are,” he said.
While reports of extortion and false impersonation have been common in phony phone calls and fake e-mails, similar fraud hasn’t been reported on Facebook until recently. Now a number of complaints are surfacing.
In response to the trend, the Better Business Bureau in late January issued a warning on its Web site, intended for Facebook’s 150 million users: know who your friends are and keep your sensitive information private.
In the Seattle case, a hacker appeared to steal Rutberg’s identity to get money from his friends by toying with their emotions