I got a notification earlier this week when a Facebook user asked to join the now-dormant Bring Google Fiber to Raleigh Facebook group that I administer. I’ve been very suspicious of the recent requests to join this page since nothing is going on with the group at the moment. Thus, I decided to check out the profile of this supposed Facebook user.
The picture on the account was an unremarkable one of a white female in her 20s. The account had only a handful of likes and friends, which made me suspicious.
Then I saw the ASCII art in a post of a big heart or somesuch. By now my alarm bells are going off. I’ve seen that posted on more than one fake account.
The real kicker was seeing this at the bottom of the user’s timeline:
This woman just joined Facebook 13 hours ago? Riiiiiiiiiiight.
I quickly marked the account as a fake and it was promptly removed from Facebook.