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7 Surefire Signs Your New Facebook Friend Is A Fake

We know that you are popular. But what if the most recent friend request you got isn’t actually from someone real? This is definitely a legitimate problem, but fortunately it’s nowhere near as big as what MySpace was like, where just about every friend request you got was fake — or at least that was the case a couple years ago.

So, check out the seven signs below to see whether the person you just heard from on Facebook — or any other social media site — is a fake.

The User Is A Hot Girl

A quick browse through some of my recent friend requests turned up with the girl pictured to the right. While I actually have a lot of attractive friends, the reality is that most extremely attractive women do not go around randomly friending people on Facebook. Not only is it an insecure practice but it’s also highly unlikely. While we all enjoy having attractive friends, if you don’t know the person who just friended you and they are extremely attractive, there’s a good chance that “friend” isn’t a real person.

The Image Shows A Celebrity

The worst offense of fake profile creators is not just that they use images of attractive women most of the time, but often times the image is of a celebrity. While this is a sure sign of an amateur fake profile creator, it happens more often then you’d think. The girl pictured in this image, for example, is actually a high-profile escort that a U.S. congressperson once had an affair with. While not everybody would know that, familiar images are an instant tip off that the person friending you is not real.

All Of Their Friends Are One Gender

If the first two signs haven’t convinced you that your newfound Facebook friend is a fake, take a look at the individual’s friends to see what percentage of them are one gender ( most likely male). In the case of the fake profile that “friended” me, 24 out of the girl’s 25 friends were guys. While there are definitely women out there who “get along better with guys,” seeing someone’s profile filled 95 percent or more with a single gender is typically a warning signal when combined with one of the other signs in this list.

A Bare Minimum Profile

Most scammers nowadays don’t take much time to fill out all the details of fake profiles. Whether that’s because scammers have just become lazy, or Facebook’s increased crackdown on fake profiles scared off the true scam artists, bare minimum profiles have become a standard. So what does that mean? It means they look like they just signed up for Facebook and have liked only a couple of things. Below is one example of a fake profile.
The creator of the profile put in the bare minimum effort to make the user look legitimate. With the little information provided in the profile below, it’s not a surprise that mostly men approved this fake girl’s friend request.
Sammy Howell Profile

They’re Just A Normal Person!

If the user is just a typical girl or guy next door, it’s more likely you’ll friend them. That’s why the most creative fake profiles are created using the “girl/guy next door” strategy. If they’re interests show that they are fun-loving, free spirited, and all of their interests are like that, there’s a good chance their profile is fake. I’m not saying that there aren’t fun loving individuals out there, but most people have a wide range of emotions that show up on their profile. Anybody who has a single emotion is not a real human.

Identical Status Updates To Other Users

Some spammers have no fear on Facebook and instead opt to generate thousands of Facebook profiles, friend hundreds of thousands of people, and post the same status updates to all of the profiles. That was exactly what happened in November of last year when an adult dating site decided to spam Facebook with profiles, each of which had a status update similar to the following one:
its hurts! haha, got somethig pierced last night, cant show on here but come view my profile:) let me know what you think http://free-adult-profiles-10.info/40117
While many of the profiles were quickly removed, the spammer behind the profile spam got pretty far before anybody called attention to it. Quick spammer tip: if you’re going to generate thousands of fake profiles, don’t do it all at once as it will bring attention to you!
Fake Facebook Profile Generator

One Profile Photo

This is pretty much the dead giveaway. Anybody who only has a single profile photo on Facebook is either extremely late to the whole online socializing experience, or is a complete fake. While I don’t know the percentage, the vast majority of Facebook users have well over one picture of themselves within their profile. If the user hasn’t published photos of themselves then they should have at least been tagged by someone else. Love it or hate it, getting tagged in a photo is a standard part of the experience on Facebook.

Conclusion

While you may be an extremely sociable person, not everyone who sends you friend requests on Facebook is necessarily real.  If you follow our advice you should be able to decode whether or not that person who just friended you actually exists. What other signs have you seen which suggest a profile isn’t real?

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