Accounts Fake and Original
Beware of Fake Accounts on Facebook
Copying is a favourite pastime of everyone.
Juniors copy the way their senior speaks. This is so pronounced in the case of secretaries that a General Manager’s secretary is called Deputy General Manager. Needless to say, this little secret is not known to either of them. Such copying happens due to long association. It is not harmful.
Singers, exponents of Classical Music I mean, copy their Guru. But then they are supposed to do it. It is a long way from copying to finding one’s original style. And people love watching an artist find his style.
Young men of my generation copied Rajesh Khanna’s hairstyle and his choice of ‘Guru Shirts.’ Girls also must have done something similar with popular heroines but honestly, I do not remember. Yes, Sadhana cut became popular, and Sadhana had copied it from Audrey Hepburn. All this is wilful copying. But benign.
Some are in a hurry. They have malevolent intentions. They are con artists. If you get to know them and grow friendship, you are sure to suffer loss – financial loss, in addition to becoming the subject of ‘how he or she did not understand such a simple thing’. Or it takes a more condescending form of ‘Look, I always warned you…’.
One person faked my Facebook account today. He copied my photograph. And my credentials. He was in dire need of money. Rs 30 Thousand to be precise. He promised to return it the next day. People can be in all sorts of difficulties, that is quite understandable. But this person was playing with the new Criminal Law passed recently, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Indian Penal Code to the old timers. The person is masquerading as Vivek Patwardhan. On Facebook. (Oh, why me?)
But my friends are wise people. Alert. And the criminal-to-be taking his chance with BNS (Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita arthaat Indian Penal Code) reached out to a lady who knew me well, and was my friend on Facebook. (I have blocked her name in this screenshot.) The Criminal-in-the-making made a wrong choice for extracting money by. Ladies will never part with hard earned money, sometimes they do not give a penny to their husband, forget about giving it to an unknown criminal-on-FB! But they surely engage the criminal-on-FB in a conversation. That is what they do best, talk it over. And the criminal-in-the-making fell in the trap. Read this exchange of messages.
My DW (Darling Wife, you silly!) read the conversation, reviewed the situation and firmly instructed me to delete my Facebook Account. My own account, the original one I mean. No choice for me. I comply with every diktat, and promptly deleted my Facebook Account.
You will not find me posting photographs of cats and landscapes. Or posting quotable quotes. Hereafter.
The criminal-in-the-making has not yet earned his Rs. 30K, as far as my knowledge goes. But the casualty is my original FB account.
Life is like that! I seek understanding.
PS: Feature Picture Courtesy Muhammad Naufal Subhiansyah from Pixabay
Vivek S Patwardhan
“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”/ All work copyrighted
Very realistic eye opener.very thoughtful of Vivek to bring out variety of issues.
I am familiar with this, not because of FB because I was never on FB and don’t intend to be. But because another person called me on my landline phone in Hyderabad and threatened me with criminal action and jail, claiming that he was calling from Allahabad High Court and that a file had come up alleging that I had committed a crime (didn’t say what the crime was) and that I had to part with a large sum of money to save myself. Of course I didn’t. However, this got so bad with repeated threats that I eventually had to cancel my phone number.
Here in America they make threatening calls to elderly people, allegedly from the Social Security Department get them to transfer funds. Many fall for this and pay the price. The sad thing is that these criminals are allegedly from India and run companies who do only this. How terrible that people can go to work all day and con others and harm them and go home in the evening and play with their children being raised on a salary which is paid to tell lies and deceive people. The amazing thing is that these callers are paid a salary. They don’t even get a share of the loot. Yet they do this criminal activity. What does that tell us about the mentality of such people? What of their children and families, who are aware of what their parents are doing and are being raised on those immoral and illegal earnings?
Here is another case that I read just this morning – passport scams.
https://www.indiatoday.in/amp/india/story/arrest-108-indian-immigration-agents-delhi-police-igi-airport-dunki-donkey-route-fake-visa-passport-work-permit-2565207-2024-07-11
Good thing you deleted your FB account, Vivek. I would have advised you to do that just to get out of enriching Zukerberg, which is a worthy step in itself.
Thanks for sharing the episode 🙏
Fake/ Con has taken giant strides and become professional too!
There was “ JAMTARA “ – an OTT film which brought out very good insights !
Innovation & creativity is the hallmark of every field ..
My Compliments on the fake/ con person being well tackled 👍
talent used in wrong way
An eye-opener….Actually these fraud calls and messages are increasing by the day. People make fake calls, fake attempts and try to con the aam-janta….Everyone I know has been a victim of such fraudsters one way or the other…Whether you are at the airport or sitting in your home enjoying the rains with chai-pakoda….Sigh!! When will this stop??
From the MSEB to MTNL, from the airports to the railway stations, from Credit Card depts to Overdraft facility – no one seems to be spared now…
Lucky that you came out of it,I know a case,where my nephew was conned
While taking lunch some one with his photograph photo,known to my nephew asked 10k and he transferred
After a moment he realised that conman copied the sound matching to his friends
Thanks for your article,cautioning every to be extremely careful as much as he can
Thanks
Ayya
Thanks for narrating this interesting episode . Yes , Fake and frauds are being reported everyday.
I appreciate the manner in which this issue was handled .
The modus operandi takes many forms . The OTT film JAMTARA is based on such frauds being committed in an organised way .
Often, the story or communication by the Fake/fraudster is slick enough to not take it at face value.
Good learning and an eye opener
Good fallout is the deletion of FB account. Congratulations!