A Dumbarton business owner has hit out at Facebook scammers who have been impersonating his company online to con locals out of cash.
Davie Bruce of Dumbarton Carriers says that it is soul-destroying doing battle with fake accounts on a daily basis, whilst a concerned Balloch resident contacted the Lennox to warn readers to be on their guard.
Davie explained to the Lennox how the cons work.
He said: “It seems to be that every time we put up a cash giveaway, these accounts jump all over it.
“We’ve been doing a £500 cash giveaway since December. We pick up rubbish and stuff like that and when people give us a wee bit extra we put it into a tin, and then give it back to people.
“It’s basically free advertising for us. So that last competition reached 50,382 online. There were 3200 odd comments on it.
“These scammers jump on that and use our profile picture, take a few pictures and then send people who enter the competition friend requests.
“Those people then send us messages asking if we sent friend requests telling us that they were winners, even though the prize hadn’t been drawn yet.
“Unfortunately we can’t stop people from sending their details. We’ve had so many messages and get so many people saying that they gave them their bank details. And we have to tell them to phone their bank straight away - because they’ll soon have nothing in it.
“We never ask for bank details. All we ask is that people share the post and tag a couple of their mates.
“I feel guilty in a way, even though there’s nothing that I can do about it.
“It’s soul-destroying, and it can be damaging to my page. People now maybe won’t enter competitions or things like that because they don’t want to be targeted by these scammers.”
The Balloch resident, who asked to remain anonymous, hopes that Facebook will change the way in which users report suspicious accounts - which currently isn’t applicable to these types of scams.
She continued: “I think people need to know that businesses don’t send friend requests, you like their pages.
“When I’ve added the fake pages as friends then I can see that a lot of my friends have added them as well, so I’ve been sharing it as much as I can to tell people to watch out for these scams. But we just don’t know how many people are falling victim to it.
“I’m sure that people are falling for it, otherwise they wouldn’t bother trying to do it. And that worries me.
“It also worries me that it could be harming the reputation of these local businesses who have nothing to do with it.”
Davie meanwhile has taken drastic action in an attempt to deter the con-artists - who are based in Indonesia.
He continued: “We ended up changing our profile picture and had to copyright it. It cost us £59, because every time we complained to Facebook they told us that they couldn’t see anything that went against their community standards.
“I’d like to think that Facebook would then have to be held accountable if these people use our profile picture on copyright grounds.
“I’ve no idea if that is the case, or if it will work, but it has to be worth a shot.”
Police Scotland advice on phishing scams warns: “Be aware of seemingly genuine messages advertising a win of some sort – these usually involve requesting the sending of money to release the prize or requesting your bank details.
“Do not click on links, download files or open attachments in emails from unknown senders. It is best to open attachments only when you are expecting them and know what they contain, even if you know the sender
“If in doubt contact the sending company over the phone using a genuine number for confirmation.”
The Lennox Herald brought the Dumbarton Carriers’ situation to the attention of Facebook, who confirmed they would investigate the issue.
