She is the most giving, spiritual, compassionate person I know. She is loved by literally hundreds of people. She is active on Facebook. Some guy out of the blue requested to be friends with her. Over the last couple of weeks he has been messaging her and developing a relationship with her. She called me the other night asking for help as she was going farther down the trail with this new friend than she was comfortable with.

I spent a couple of hours with her yesterday helping her in this situation. Immediately scam alarms went off. In doing just a simple FB search I've found many accounts with the same name, same pictures, etc. All with somewhat similar backgrounds, names, etc but sometimes varying from account to account. This scammer is creating accounts and then reaching out to unsuspecting and vulnerable people. I am glad my friend reached out to me. She allowed me to read the Messaging thread that went back the last couple of weeks. The grooming language he used, etc was so obvious to an outsider. But I guess not so much to a vulnerable person like herself. Plus all the probing questions about her - trying to find out where she lives, how much wealth she might have, etc.

While at her house we tightened down her Facebook security (all her posts were open to the world), etc. (I am by default her computer person - as many of us are with others we know. Not everyone has an ex computing security person as their friend). Fortunately she does not do any financial stuff online. She still uses checkbooks for her bills. So hopefully she's not as vulnerable to online scams. But I worry about others without knowledgeable resources and who are lonely and trusting.

I hate that anyone would prey on the older and vulnerable in our society.

Just a piece of advice: If you know of anyone with a Facebook account I would encourage them to Go to their profile. Go to Settings & Privacy. Then have them go to Privacy Checkup and tighten down their security settings so that it is much more restricted. Too many people have all their posts as Public which only leads to potential scammers and others who copy their pictures, info and then create bogus FB accounts.