by Anne R. Allen
Yes, I’ve already written a warning to writers about publishing scams this month. But I heard about a new, diabolical one only a few days ago. This can affect both traditionally published and indie authors. And everybody needs to help spread the word.
That’s because the author won’t know it’s happening. Readers need to alert them before it’s too late.
I first discovered this scam through the blog of New Zealand author Maureen Crisp. It’s worth subscribing to her blog, Craic-er. She has all the latest publishing news from around the world.
This scam can affect any author who uses Facebook. If you’re not on Facebook, you’re safe from this one. (But read on. I have another warning to writers of a scam that targets all authors.)
For those of us who have “Author page” on Facebook, these scammers can be deadly.
The Attack of the Clones
I think most Facebook users have run into the scammers who “clone” our Facebook pages. They cut and paste our page into a new account, pretending to be us. Then they send friend requests to everybody on our list.
A user breezing by will think, “I thought I was friends with her! I’d better fix that.” So they accept the “friendship” of the person who is impersonating you. Then they will, within hours, get a Direct Message that says “How are you doing?”
With a foot in the DM door, the scammer chats up the friend. Often they’re trying to sell bogus weight loss programs or other dodgy products through pyramid schemes.
They also might make direct requests for money. This can involve soliciting for bogus charities — abused pets are popular. Or sometimes they’ll try to pull one of the venerable “Help! I’m being held hostage in a foreign country. Send money” scams. Maybe they’ll try to get you to click on a link to a site that will install malware on your device. Or they may simply troll for personal data to use for identity theft.
I’m so wary of the “How are you doing” scammers that I recently deleted a DM from an actual IRL friend who opened with that line. ☹
Cloning isn’t Hacking
Even if it hasn’t happened to you yet, I’m sure you’ve seen announcements on friends’ pages that say “I’ve been hacked!!! Don’t accept a friend request from somebody pretending to be me.”
Definitely don’t accept the friend request. Yes, somebody is pretending to be the victim. But the truth is they haven’t literally been “hacked”. They’ve been cloned. Anybody can clone your page with simple cut and paste. No point in changing your password. They didn’t use it. They simply copy the part of your page anybody can see. Then they claim to be you. They send “How are you doing” DMs to everybody on your friend list — a list also available to the general public.
It isn’t the person who’s been cloned who’s the victim. The target is anybody who accepts the “friendship.”
Facebook has no mechanism to stop this. Apparently, no algorithms have been invented to alert them that a page has been set up that’s identical to an existing one. The only way to combat this is to ask your friends to let you know if they get a friend request from you. Most of them know they are already your friend, but they may not know it’s dangerous to accept that second request..
Readers and victims need to report the scammers through the drop-down menu in the little three dot thingy in the menu bar. Choose the option “somebody is pretending to be me” or “somebody is pretending to be my friend.” Then report them.
This will get the scam page taken down. But tomorrow they’ll do it to somebody else you know. They went though almost our entire writing club a couple of years ago.
Now Scammers are Cloning Our Author Pages
The latest scam involves the same kind of page cloning I described above. But it’s not your Friend page they clone, but your Author page. Then, in your name, they start their exciting, fun con. They offer to give away your books FREE to all your readers!
Fans come running. Yay! Favorite Author is giving away free books! All readers need to do is give these people who are pretending to be Favorite Author their home address, credit card number (for future discounts) and probably the name of their favorite pet and mother’s maiden name.
Yeah.
Authors don’t know what’s going on until the complaints start coming in. Where are the free books?
Unfortunately what happens next is Facebook yanks Favorite Author’s REAL author page. The author is kicked off Facebook and can’t even apologize to all those fans who never got the books and have had their bank accounts cleared out by these identity thieves.
Slick scam, right?
What Can a Cloned Author Do?
According to Maureen Crisp’s sources, you need to report the cloned page to Facebook and Google within 48 hours. I’m not sure if that is a rule with the companies or just a guideline for containment of the damage.
Apparently Google will remove a “phishing” site from the search engine within 12 hours. Facebook has no such guarantee, but my experience with Friend pages is that they remove cloned sites pretty quickly, once they have a report.
However, when studying the new design of my Author page, I can’t find any mechanism for reporting violations. Those three little dots are there in the banner just like on the Friend page, but the drop down menu has no option for reporting or even asking for help.
Any readers who know how to report a problem with a business page to Facebook, do let us know.
Maureen Crisp’s source suggested limiting what countries can view your Author page. That might help if the scammers are headquartered in another country. But I don’t think anybody knows which country. Do you just limit your page to your own country? That could eliminate a lot of fans.
Do We Keep Our Facebook Author Pages?
So should we keep an Author Page if it’s so dangerous?
I’ve found my Author page increasingly less useful in the last year. Facebook keeps throwing more obstacles in our paths. I guess it’s meant to bully us into paying for “boosting” our posts. We now have to change “profiles” even to look at our own Author pages, and if we post any information there with a link, the reader will get a “are you sure you want to leave Facebook?” message when they try to click on the link and read the piece.
The “notifications” feed constantly tells me I haven’t “completed” the Author page by giving my home phone number to them so they can sell it to robocallers and heavy breathers. They also fill my feed with constant “permission” to follow people I have no interest in following. Altogether tedious and silly.
Also, we used to be told how many hits we were getting on each post. Now we get nothing but the number of “likes.” I used to post daily writing tips, agent news, and calls for submissions, but I hardly ever do anymore. I know people will be thwarted from reading them, so why jump through all the hoops to post?
I have been thinking of deleting the Author page, but I’ve decided against it for now. It’s sort of like being listed in the Yellow Pages. I’ve found it’s much easier to communicate with readers on the Friend page these days. But the number of friends we’re allowed is limited.
And I fear new scammers will move in and perpetrate something even nastier on our Friend pages.
Maybe it’s worth it to keep both pages even if it’s just to have a spare when the scammers sabotage the other. Either way, we need to be hyper-vigilant.
Warning to Writers of Another Scam Not Exclusive to Facebook
I’ve heard now from several different people that writers should be REALLY wary of editors who advertise fees way below the going rate.
It seems some of these “editors” are outright thieves who simply steal the manuscript and immediately publish it on Amazon under their own names.
Yeah. Simple, heartbreaking theft. Work that took maybe years of your life. Not to mention your blood sweat and tears. Now some creep has slapped a hideous cover on it and is selling it on Amazon. There is probably a way to report a stolen manuscript to Amazon, but I imagine it’s a difficult process.
If you haven’t copyrighted your manuscript, it’s tough to get it back. Amazon will see the ‘original” author as the scammer. But who copyrights an unedited book?
I’ve always told writers not to worry about copyrighting a manuscript until it’s published, since every change makes it a different book and will need a new copyright.
The best protection is to be aware. Don’t use an editor you find on Fivrr, or one who approaches you via Social Media with a “great deal”. Or any stranger you don’t know through a friend or happy client. Here’s Jodie Renner’s post on how to find a legitimate editor for your book. Her policy of editing the manuscript in chunks rather than working on the full manuscript would help, too.
You’re not Paranoid. They Really are After You.
If it feels as if writers are targeted by scammers more than the general public, I think you’re right. Writers can have big dreams. And there’s so much misinformation out there about the publishing industry, new writers are easy, juicy prey.
Never underestimate the scammers They’re armed with plausible lies and lots of tech skills. If you’re not vigilant, they’ll not only rob you of your money, but shatter your dreams too.
I got a reply to a Tweet of my last publishing scam alert from a “publisher,” who said they wanted to “help me get traditionally published.” Yeah. The very people I was warning writers against thought I’d fall for their BS.
Unfortunately, that means a lot of writers do. So educate yourself.
For more on current publishing scams, like the Goodreads Extortion Racket, the write-with-James-Patterson-maybe thing, the latest Anthology and Hollywood scams, and “The Big-5-wants-your-old-failed-novel” scam, read my last post on the latest diabolical stuff from the publishing scammerss.
by Anne R. Allen (@annerallen) September 19, 2021
***
What about you, scriveners? Do you think a Facebook Author page is worthwhile these days? Have you heard of this page cloning scam? Or the phony editor scam? Have you experienced either of these scams? Do you know the best way to report the scammers to Facebook or Amazon? Do you have a warning to writers about any other new scams?
BOOK OF THE WEEK
THE GATSBY GAME
What happens when a writer starts believing he’s living in a Fitzgerald novel?
Based on a real-life corpse found on the set of a Burt Reynolds movie.
(For more on this, and the tabloid accusations that Burt Reynolds murdered David Whiting, see my book blog.
When Fitzgerald-quoting con man Alistair Milborne is found dead a movie star’s motel room — igniting a world-wide scandal — the small-town police can’t decide if it’s an accident, suicide, or foul play. As evidence of murder emerges, Nicky Conway, the smart-mouth nanny, becomes the prime suspect.
She’s the only one who knows what happened. But she also knows nobody will ever believe her. The story is based on the real mystery surrounding the death of David Whiting, actress Sarah Miles’ business manager, during the filming of the 1973 Burt Reynolds movie The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing.
Only $3.99 for the ebook from:
Amazon , Kobo, Barnes & Noble , Scribd,
Available in paper from:
I have a FB page, but use it so seldom I probably should just delete it and avoid any future hassles like this. FB is so useless at helping people and blocking the bad actors, it kind of amazes me how many people still depend on it so much.
D.D.–Ruth Harris and Alex Cavanaugh do very well without Facebook, so it may be time to let it go if it’s not helping your career. The WSJ series on FB’s failings that Ruth Has linked to is enlightening.
Excellent post, Anne. So kind of you to help unsuspecting authors stay aware and alert to avoid scammers and liars and cheats.
About 6 years ago, someone copied large chunks of my editing website, including my most glowing testimonials, and changed the names under them and pasted them into a bogus site, passing the reviews off as their own! If a FB friend hadn’t alerted me about it, I would have never known. I wonder how many people they cheated before I *tried to* shut them down? Probably just opened another one. And it was obvious by the content they did write that they could barely write comprehensible English, much less edit anyone else’s writing. But if they ask for money up front, duped writers are screwed. If anyone wants more information on that scam, here’s the post: https://killzoneblog.com/2014/04/looking-for-editor-check-them-out-very.html
Thanks for all you do for writers, Anne! You’re a gem!
Jodie–I didn’t know that happened to you! I had my first Blogspot blog cloned and posted in some Brazilian site where my posts were illegible and surrounded by ads in Portuguese. I had to hire somebody to get it taken down and move the blog to WordPress where there’s more security. Your theft is more diabolical, though, because real people could have given these scammers money on the basis of your stolen reviews. What slime! Thanks for that link!
Yes, it was shocking to me and a nightmare to deal with. Writers seeking editors need to stay hyper-vigilant and look for small signs like grammatical and spelling errors, etc.
Anne—Excellent!
As you know, I never signed up for FB. Why? Because back in the early days when it was just lowly fb a site that started out cuz MarkZ wanted to rate girls (blech), I thought the interface was ugly. It offended my sense of style. Seriously. Boy, am I glad!
The WSJ has been running an excellent series this week about FB. Here’s headline & the link:
The Facebook Files
A Wall Street Journal investigation
Facebook Inc. knows, in acute detail, that its platforms are riddled with flaws that cause harm, often in ways only the company fully understands. That is the central finding of a Wall Street Journal series, based on a review of internal Facebook documents, including research reports, online employee discussions and drafts of presentations to senior management.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-facebook-files-11631713039?mod=hp_lead_pos8
Ruth, thank you for posting this link. What a series of eye-opening reports on Facebook’s “ignore problems” approach.
Ruth–Thanks! I only heard about the WSJ series this morning on NPR. I’m so glad you included the link here. Facebook is the Wild West, and there’s no sheriff in town. But there are vigilantes. So your page can be taken down, or you get put in FB jail for an unknown “offence” nobody can name, like what happened to Kathy Steinemann. But the real perpetrators commit serious crimes with impunity.
At times, under certain circumstances, it truly is a scary world out there. Thank you for making it a little safer, Anne.
Leanne–It is scary. And somehow it seems scarier all the time. I don’t know if there are more crooks, but there are more crooks with tech skills, that’s for sure.
Well, You’ve managed to make me think it may be a good thing to have no published books out there, & therefore, no author page on FB. I guess gratitude is a good thing to feel no matter what one is grateful for.
CS–I’m not sure the unpublished are safe, either. These scammers are everywhere, lying in wait. If only it were as lucrative to write books as it is to scam people who write books. 🙁
I find out about the latest scams from this blog. You do a fantastic job of keeping us aware of the craziness out there, most of which is looking to part authors (and their friends) from their cash.
Several changes to Facebook Pages have made it less practical for small marketers and solopreneurs, no doubt in an effort to get us to pay for advertising. Making and scheduling posts has gotten more complicated, too, with the rollout of a “studio” style interface. So we have to ask ourselves if Facebook is worth the time and energy, and balance that against risks like the scam you describe.
Is there any social media platform for authors that doesn’t have scam problems? Or provides a platform for bullies?
Carmen–Those changes do seem calculated to keep small businesses out. They want to force us to buy ads, but those ads do not convert to sales, so they’re pointless. I wish I knew of a better social media platform. I tried MeWe and just got bombarded by catfish romance scammers. Others seem to be dominated by Nazis and misogynists. Pinterest can be fun (and a time-waster) but it has never generated sales for me.
This is more than annoying.
Last month I was locked out of my account for several weeks because Facebook’s two-factor authentication doesn’t work, and I ended up creating a new author page. Then, when I got back in, their page-merge function denied my request to merge the pages, saying the pages represented different things. I’ve contacted Support a few times — without a resolution to the problem.
I’ve wasted so much time and energy trying to fix their %^%%$$%^^*^-ups.
Blech.
Old page: MovedToKathySWriter; new page: KathySWriter.
Up until the last few days, I was posting duplicate content on both pages. Now I’m letting people know about what is happening on the new page without making the duplicate posts.
Does Facebook care?
Probably not.
But I won’t be spending any money for Christmas advertising.
Kathy–I’ve watched you get abused by the Facebook elves with horror. The whole system seems broken. And now this Wall Street Journal article confirms our worst suspicions. They know it’s broken and they don’t want to fix it. And yeah. Do not waste time on FB ads. They don’t convert to sales anyway.
I often wonder if these scammers put their ingenuity and effort into a legitimate enterprise, how they’d make out. Maybe they did, tried and failed, then went back to what they do best – conning people and stealing intellectual property. Alas…
Facebook. Hmmm. I have an author site but haven’t looked at it in a long time as it never seemed to do anything for me. Maybe that’s because I didn’t do anything for it. But my personal one is pretty active – especially with FB sales ads asking me to pay for blog post boosts. I tried a $25 boost once and it did open up considerable FB traffic, but I saw no conversion difference over at my e-tailer sales sites.
However, some of the best laughs ever are from FB. Happy Sunday, Anne, and to Ruth too, of course!
Garry–I interact with you from my personal FB page and you’re right. It can be funny and fun. I love sharing funny memes and cute pet stories. It’s a nice way to take a break and chat with people–like visiting the old water cooler at work. For the past few months, I only visit the Author page a few times a week, and I don’t get comments anymore. As I said, it’s sort of like being listed in the Yellow Pages. But we need to pay more attention now.
Would these people make more money if they went legit? I don’t know. My feeling is they’re cube monkeys who have learned tech skills working for US companies abroad. The jobs are tedious, so they hate North Americans and think we’re all rich like their bosses, so they feel justified in using those skills to take our money.
I need to follow Maureen’s site.
Fortunately, I am not on Facebook! But that’s scary for those who are.
Alex–Maureen has great info! Yeah, you’re a good example of how a blog can still be the most powerful social medium, and you can skip the drama on sites like FB, Instagram and TikTok.
Yikes!!
I don’t have an author page – never bothered with anything other than the profile.
I just don’t understand people like this!!!
Jemi–I think you made a wise decision to avoid the Author page. It’s no longer very useful and now it’s dangerous. They say 4% of the population are sociopaths. But on the Internet, I’d say the number is MUCH higher. Sigh.
This is so depressing to find out about but I am SO grateful you’re telling us. It means a lot to us authors who haven’t had this happen to us – hopefully it won’t – but keeps us aware.
Patricia–I find it depressing too. We like to keep this blog upbeat, so I wasn’t sure if I should write about scams again so soon. But this one is so scary, I figured I’d better get the warning out there.
Your blog is always very upbeat. But this “be forewarned” is necessary and appreciated.
Thank you.
Ugh. Just ugh. I’ve actually thought about deleting my FB Author page – I tend to post on my regular page anyway, unless it’s in a specific group. Gawd, the only reason I’m even still on FB is because I have a pretty good reach for selling books. Anne, thank you (as always). I’m so damned tired.
Martha–I’m with you on feeling exhausted by it all. I’m staying on FB because that’s where my readers are. But I’m so tired of the romance scammers and page cloners as well as the new and more horrible scams. Then of course FB telling me a video of a kitten and crow making friends goes against their “standards.” Sigh
Really terrifying what’s going on out there. ????
I’m not on Facebook but I have experienced this “I’m a friend of yours” scam several years back in my emails.
It was rather odd – I got links sent by email addresses/user names that looked exactly like some of my contacts in my email account.
I asked one of my friend “Did you send me a weird link?” and they hadn’t. Same with a totally different friend. So scammers made themselves look like my friends.
Really, it’s so SAD what human beings do to other human beings. Why, just why…
Thank you for this warning post, and thank you for looking out for us! ????
Also, if someone stole my manuscript and published it, OMG I don’t know what I’d do. I’d feel destroyed, somehow. Completely shattered.
Katja–That’s an oldie but still nasty scam. When Yahoo got hacked, a lot of my friends got emails from scammers pretending to be me. They’d get a message like “is this you in this picture?” with a link. Of course the link installed malware in the friends’ computers. Luckily most people know to never ever click on a suspicious link. People know I tend to be wordy and wouldn’t send a message like that.
Hey Anne,
Another facebook fake out appears to be those posts that are now frequenting writer groups on FB. They post something like, ‘drop your book link for free promotion.’ or phishing posts like, ‘how many books have you published and where?’ And various others that are similar. From what I’ve heard, these are pirates looking for books to scalp and sell on pirate sites, or worse.
Anyway, just thought I’d mention it.
Annie
Anita–Thanks so much for the warning! Last time I told people the scammers are infiltrating FB writing groups to sell them on bogus publishers. But this one is new to me. It sounds as if they are pirating books, and if they get an unpublished one, they could throw it up on Amazon and claim they own it like the editing scammers. Nastiness abounds!
Thanks, Anne, for these warnings. Scammers are always five steps ahead. No way to ever catch up to them, let alone get ahead of them.
A few years ago, my FB account was cloned. I don’t remember the particulars but FB made it impossible for me to report the problem. A friend at Oxford who’s an astrophysicist finally figured out how to report it for me. If it takes someone that brilliant and educated to wrangle through the FB jungle, what chance do the rest of us have???
When my account was cloned for the second time, I said enough and closed it.
I’m still on Twitter but only reluctantly, mostly to RT posts by friends. Give me the smallest reason and I’ll be out of there, too. I can’t track a single book sale to FB or Twitter.
SM has become S&M.
The most successful scammers of all time are founders of social media. They flim-flammed three billion plus people into their webs.
Debbie–I fear you have a point. The biggest scammers of all are Mark Zuckerberg and friends. “SM has become S&M” 🙂 Sigh. That’s awful that FB wouldn’t take down the clone. I’ve had good luck with that, but maybe because I reported within hours.
Thanks, Anne — and Ruth (and your link) — for always giving the timely heads-up about the latest crap-scam for authors. My clients are ‘gifted’ with your warning posts (if they aren’t already hooked up with you) each time.
I tried FB with my sis-n-law when it first came out — it didn’t work for the purposes we needed. Then went through my computer trying to get the blankety-blank thing out of it! Finally had to do a full re-boot to get rid of it, as it had attached itself to every possible root and registry in the system. I feltlike I’d just missed being taken over by aliens… :o)))
Keep on keepin’ on! and thanks again, Anne.
Maria
Maria–Thanks for spreading the word. I’ve heard it’s harder to escape Facebook than people think. It infiltrates everything, like a fungus. Even Ruth, who has never been on Facebook, gets messages from them. In Spanish! Yes, they might be aliens. 🙂
I had someone use my name and Facebook profile picture to set up an account with the same name on Instagram, where I didn’t have a presence. Because Facebook and Instagram are part of the same company, this account used Messenger to start spamming my friends with information on how to receive government funding.
It took at least three days to get this fake account taken down. The process was not easy.
This was my personal page, as I don’t yet have an author page.
John–WARNING!!! Thanks so much for coming over from Facebook and sharing your story. This is a warning to all authors like me who have avoided Instagram. Right now, Google your name with “Instagram.” If you find yourself, get somebody who is on Instagram to report the profile as an impersonation.
This also explains why I’ve had some weird things from Instagram in Messenger. They have that same message about bogus “government benefits” (Just give us your bank information and we’ll make sure the government gives you your benefits.” Right.
THANKS!!!
This is so depressing. If I had my ‘druthers, I’d get off Facebook altogether. It’s more trouble than it’s worth. How much does it hurt authors if they’re not on Facebook?
Liz–Both Ruth Harris and Alex Cavanaugh have good solid book sales with no Facebook presence. It can be done, especially if you keep a regular blog.
Good to know, thanks. I was wondering about that, as I do keep a regular blog.
It’s so ALARMINGLY easy, both these scams. Great of you to point this out, thanks Anne. I feel better and better about my decision not to use a FB Author page. I was driven chiefly by laziness at first, but there are other reasons- I don’t do enough book boosting in the first place, and I must say, I think it would be amusing to see anyone try to spoof my posts.
Will–If you don’t have a FB Author page, I’m sure you don’t need one now. But as you say, it’s amazingly simple to clone a page. I have a 13 year old do it in my current book.
My cousin had someone make a clone of her profile. She and I reported it multiple times and I’m sure her mom also did, but FB refused to take it down. Last I knew, the cloned profile of her was still up. Really sucked.
Patricia–You’re the second commenter who has had trouble getting a cloned page taken down. This is not good news. I have had no trouble in the past, but I haven’t had to report one in several months. It sounds as if the reporting system has broken.
I got an email from a company called TVB: The Virtual Book Company the email address was from a Maureen@thevirtualbooktourcompany.com. It was short and very unprofessional – no images, no signature. There was a link to a PDF that gave you all these prices to get book reviews—I’ve just started and have only one book out there but I will never buy a review anyway. I went and checked them out on the internet and also went onto Writer Beware—though I found nothing on Writer Beware, I did get to Reedsy.com’s scam check and I felt it was a scam. Plus on the website they have a list of people who work with them. If you click on the names they don’t exist. The website is quite minimal too. A generic template they have filled in. I am taking the cautious side and saying it’s a scam. And I’d like to warn you all about it too.
Valerie–Thanks for the warning! Yup. This looks like a pretty dodgy outfit. They may not be a complete scam, but a book tour to a bunch of blogs that have zero traffic is not worth paying a penny for. Not to mention the hard work of writing blogposts for them. There are good blog tour companies out there, but this is not one of them. I clicked on a couple of their “review blogs” and one had a “review” of some kind of off-roading car tires, and the other, from Nigeria, had only one entry, from six months ago. And it was not a book review. Yikes.
Thanks for this information, Anne. It’s depressing to see the ease with which scammers can clone pages and get away with it. Where’s FB’s accountability?
I have both a personal page and an author page. I’ve been wondering for a while about that author page. I’m not getting any real benefit from it that I can see. I think it’s time to delete that one.
Thanks again for the heads-up. Stay safe out there!
Kay–I hear you. I should think Facebook has the capabilities to stop this, but they choose not to. I just tried to post some info about this blogpost on my Author page, but they wouldn’t even let me see what I was writing or posting unless I paid to “boost” the post. Yeah. I think it’s probably time to say bu-bye Mr. Zuckerberg.
Thanks for all this important information. I will be posting the link on my blog.
Rosi–Thanks for spreading the word!
Hi Anne, Thanks for the kind words. My Source is still fighting the scammers who are targeting authors down under. They are fighting back with limiting where their pages can be viewed and checking the cloned site as they add new posts. They bring a new country back on their viewing list and then post a pic of cute animal. They check the cloned site if animal is there they block that country on the geo tagging part of settings. It is tedious tedious tedious but it can save your author page because FB won’t do anything.
Hi to all Anne and Ruth’s readers… (Aren’t they the best!!!)
Maureen
Hi Maureen–Thanks for stopping by! It does seem that Aussies and Kiwis are the targets of this scam right now, but I have no doubt it will spread to North America and the UK. If your friend does find out by process of elimination where these scammers are hosted, do let us know on your blog. Most publishing scams originate in the Philippines, but this one is a little different, so maybe it’s from somewhere else. Thanks for warning us about this deadly scam!
I’m ambivalent about Facebook. I enjoy a lot of my feed when it pertains to old photos, plants and animals plus a good cat video now and then. But the hassle if you are cloned is sad. Unfortunately predators are always there. I have handicapped family members and those predators are a reality that I have had to deal with.
So Much–I find the “friend” page is much more enjoyable because we can still get cat videos and fun stuff. But you’re right that predators are always there. And Facebook unfortunately doesn’t choose to police their own site.
Hi Anne R. Allen, thank you for once again blogging an informative warning. I am so wary of accepting Facebook ‘friend request’, and much prefer a ‘Like’ and or ‘Follow’. I got annoyed with a persistent phone caller from a book republishing company, and as I hadn’t returned her [international] calls she started inundating me with emails. A month or so ago I answered an early morning phone call as it was from the US and I thought from one of my relatives but no, she was from the US so a business hour for her, here in Australia it was 6.30am) I demanded that she was not to contact me again. So far it has worked and no calls from her, however, others from the same company have started the rounds 🙁 I’m not answering US calls and am ringing my relatives separately in case it happens to be from one of them.
Anne, would you mind if I posted the link to this blog article to my writer facebook page? all the best, stay safe and well
Suzanne–That book “republishing” company is the subject of my first September post about scams. They’ve called me at 6 in the morning too. They are relentless, and their entire scam is so bogus. No Big 5 publisher will look at a “republished” book. These people are raking in 10s of thousands from unsuspecting self-published writers. I even heard from a woman who said they harassed her dad, who has dementia, in his nursing home. They somehow got his bank info and emptied his account, claiming he’d signed a “virtual contract.” (He has no access to a computer) These people are ruthless and sociopathic. Block their numbers if they ever call again. Nothing they are selling is worth anything. It’s wise to avoid all those calls “from the US”. They’re not in the US. They’re in the Philippines. But they have tech to make it look as if the numbers are from the US. They have fake PO boxes here too. Do read my post and spread the word. These people are pure evil.
And please, yes, do spread the word. I want as many writers to be aware of these scams as possible.
This also happens on Instagram. Facebook’s little sister. My account was cloned. I reported it and they took us both down. I lost 4K followers. And the process to get reinstated is tedious, involves proving your identity with official documents and is worthless.
You can try to get your IG account verified, but you have to jump through quite a few hoops for that is well and usually without success unless you are a household name.
Tina–That’s tragic to lose all those followers. Just because of some scammer! Facebook/Instagram needs to get it together! So I’ve heard this week of Instagram accounts being cloned, like yours, and Instagram accounts being opened by scammers using our FB data. Not only are these people scamming our friends and making enemies for us, but they’re preventing us from ever opening an Instagram account. Awful people.
I’m feeling sad, reading these comments. I simply can’t understand the mentality of these people. No, I lie. I can. They want to make money with little effort on their part, regardless of what it might do to someone else. Yes, you are right. Such lack of simple human feelings for others is evil.
The same applies to Mark Zuckerman and others of his ilk. They are making gazillions from the likes of us, but as long as the money is rolling in, they just don’t care. They all (and I include others making loads of money, like Amazon) make it difficult, if not impossible to contact them about problems. They have lost their souls to the Mighty God of Money.
Look at the way Audible treats its contributors. Recently, they said my publisher had published some copyrighted work and stopped paying all royalties. They hadn’t, and fortunately it has now been resolved, but there is still the on-going Audiblegate.
I’m not sure I’ve ever sold many books as a result of FB. I know a couple of my friends, who live too far away to see regularly, have bought some, but others? *shrugs*.
Anyway, FB has a very dodgy beginning.
But I’m on FB. My private account is fun, and that’s where I know I got a few sales. Maybe I should scrap my author pages. (I have 2. One for my fantasy books, and one for my historical novels.)
Thank you so much, Anne, for bringing this new scary scam and others to our attention.
V.M. I hear you about Audible. When my audiobooks first went up there, I made a nice income stream from them. Now–nothing. They give away all our audiobooks for free and we don’t get a penny.
I agree that a FB friend page is fun. I’m going to keep mine. I reach new readers and also find potential beta readers and keep track of other authors I’ve made friends with. But I’ll bet you don’t need those author pages. Two gives them even more opportunity to clone you.
Thank you for this useful information.
I’m a line editor, copy editor, proofreader, and formatter.
Two things I disagree with: (1) When I was first building my business, I trolled for projects on Upwork (similar to Fiverr). It was a way to get paying work and experience while I built my reputation. (2) As an experienced editor who works with many indie authors, I prefer to work with the full manuscript, not chunks because, in my work process, I often go back and forth as I’m editing to check for inconsistencies.
I agree that clients need to be wary of “editors” who simply run SpellCheck and grammar software through a manuscript. My advice to writers is to do your homework when hiring an editor. Are they a member of any professional organizations? Do they have a professional presence, like a website or a profile on LinkedIn? Do they offer a sample edit? A sample is an opportunity to determine if you and the editor will work well together. I offer a free sample edit of 500-600 words, and I turn it in with a proposal that sets out the fee and terms and explains how I work.
Thanks again for educating your readers to the scams that are out there.
Julie–I’m glad you were able to build a business on UPwork. It has a less sleazy reputation than Fiverr. Jodie Renner gave a lot of similar tips in her post last week, but it’s good to have a reminder here.
Thank you for the warning, Anne. I’ve never been a fan of author pages. I started one years ago, but rarely use it other than my blog posts automatically being shared there and the occasional book news (which I repost on my personal). For a while I tried to juggle both, but my personal page is so much more fun. And now with FB’s “new and improved” pages, I can’t navigate my author page. They hound me too with “add your phone number.” No, thank you. I had to download a separate app just so I’d know when readers messaged me. Why they removed my page from the original Messenger app, I have no idea, but I can’t get it back. Ugh. FB can be so frustrating at times. This new scam makes things even worse.
Sue–You know, I haven’t had one message on my author page since FB made the big changes. I didn’t know I needed to download an app! I hope people will come over to my friend page to send a message. They didn’t even tell us they’d disabled Messenger on business pages. I guess that’s part of their hunger to get our personal phone numbers. If nobody can message us, they’ll have to phone. And once FB has our phone numbers, they’ll sell them everywhere and we’ll get robocalls every 5 minutes all day long. It is so frustrating!!
Exactly! If you have an iPhone, the Business Suite app lets you manage your FB author page and Instagram account in one place, including messages on both platforms. Facebook, of course, wants you to download their Facebook Pages app, but I feel it’s a workaround to steal our phone numbers.
Thanks for the warning. Your newsletters are ones that I always read. You are much appreciated for all the great advice you give.
Alexa–I’m so glad to hear you find our blog useful!
Great blog, Anne, and great comments. Very helpful, and supportive (weirdly) of my own lazy inertia in not getting on the “platform” bandwagon. Thank The Great Spirit I’m such a slug. Though I do keep writing. Regards to you and the Los Osos group.
Steve–Laziness may be a good thing these days. It’s a lot easier to sell books with social media, but social media get more dangerous every day. I’ll tell the crew you said hi!
Anne, thanks again. I have a FB page which I visit occasionally, usually to post comic strips about writing or politics. I also have a FB author page, which I do little with. The primary use of both is to announce when I’ve published a new post on my blog.
I did make a sale on each of my two-novel story to a FB friend. He posted a great review, to my FB page. I’ve copied it and distributed it a little. But now I’m going to issue a warning at least on my author page about a possible cloning.
While reading the comments it occurred to me it could make for a great story–somebody uses FB to rob and devastate the wrong person, and (s)he sets out on a mission of revenge. I mean, physical violent revenge. I don’t have the tech knowledge to portray the discovery of the identity realistically, but if someone does, be my guest.
Fred–Great idea to post a warning on your author page. Wish I’d thought of it. (runs off to put warning on her author page.)
You’re right. It’s a great plot. I’ve used the FB page-cloning thing in my current WIP, Catfishing in America. 🙂
Wow, that was one scary and action-packed post Anne. Thanks so much for always keeping us on the alert. On the Fakebook front, I’m totally with you in that same quandry, along with many other writers in our circles. I know that Sally Cronin and Colleen Chesebro, among others, have taken off their author pages already, for reasons you mention. I, like you, am on the fence, for the same reason you say – it’s like being in the Yellow Pages. But In the past few months, I notice hardly any likes, and nothing from authors, as I know my posts aren’t being shown, so I too, stopped posting about writing there. It’s sad about greed and thievery for sure. As far as editors go, I remember I found mine through recommendations after asking several already published authors. I strayed once then ran back, and grateful to not be in that frey. Great article, of course I’m sharing. 🙂 x
Debby–I didn’t think of this post as action-packed, but I guess it is.:-) But we all have to act. Fred here just suggested putting a warning on our Author pages and that makes sense to me.
But the way Facebook has made our Author pages so useless makes this all pretty much an exercise in futility. Thanks for spreading the word!
Hmm, just wondering how the FB bots will take to massive postings on how bad they are, lol. But seriously, we’ve lost much of our author/writing traffic already from them, not sure it will get noticed. If we share on our blogs and other social media – Twitter and LinkedIn we may get good eyes out. 🙂
Debby–If enough people complain, maybe they’ll do something! It’s worth a shot.
I only wish that I could remove my FB author page. But it is a requirement for me to be able to schedule posts on Instagram…where I am active and have a following. The new “business interface” that puts Instagram and Facebook together is horrible. I get notifications for messages that don’t exist or for ones that I already checked off in the other system.
I was cloned on Instagram twice, but thankfully my friends let me now and I was able to get Instagram to take it down within a day both times. Recently, I was hacked by a ransomer hellbent on destroying me because I didn’t pay the ransom. That one has taken weeks to settle…and is still on going.
Lately, I find myself pulling away from these larger socials and focusing more on in-person contact the old fashioned way or contained virtual spaces where there is more of a gatekeeper.
I think that if you can close your FB author page, you should. I keep mine mainly because if a reader wants to find me, they can find me via the author page to my website…but even that seems to be winding down. Anyway, thank you for the article. It confirms much of what I’ve been seeing over the past year or two.
Wendy–I just had to fish your great comment out of spam. NO idea why the spam elves did that. I think they must need a vacation or something. 🙂
Great info here. I’m not on Instagram, so I didn’t know your profiles have to be linked now. Sounds like a hassle and a half. From the responses I’m getting here and on Twitter, it sounds as if cloning is even more of a problem on Instagram. And the message thing is so weird. I thought I just hadn’t got any messages for a while, but now I think they’re hiding them.
So sorry to hear about your ransomware stalker. What a nightmare! Why do people think writers have money? 🙂
Like you, I keep the Author page as a way to find me, sort of like being in the Yellow Pages. But it seems pretty useless for anything else.
I think my email is now on several “ban lists” due to my hacker. It has been an ongoing problem for me…but I continue to work on repairing things. Thanks for fishing me out!
Great post! I am thinking about shutting down my author page…but I know profile pages get cloned…my aunt’s page did. And when I got that “Hey, How are you doing” DM, I reported it and deleted it immediately. I knew it wasn’t her based on that greeting.
Leslie–I’ve always found FB took down those bogus pages immediately. I’m glad you did too. Some people report no response from FB, which is discouraging. But I can’t find a way to report a cloned business page (which is probably why the scammers are doing it.) A lot of people are deleting their Author pages. I’m still on the fence. But it is scary having it out there.
WOW! What an education I’m getting here. Thank you! I’m a newbie to writing my first book. Had no idea I have so much to learn. I’ve been Catfished. About 10 years ago. So happy I ended up here. DJ Smith
DJ–Welcome! It’s horrifying how many scammers attack writers isn’t it? I think there are more people making money off writers than there are writers making money. So you’ve been catfished! I happen to be working on a new novel called Catfishing in America. Catfishing has become epidemic in the Internet age. Nobody is what they seem.