Fake friends on Facebook

DOES Facebook keep sending you e-mail messages to notify you of comments and photos posted to your wall, but the alerts do not come to the email account you use with the social media site. Is someone impersonating you?

Impersonation on Facebook is a possibility. But unless you clicked a confirmation link at one point to acknowledge that you had set up a Facebook account linked to that e-mail address, it is more likely that you are getting fraudulent Facebook messages.

If you received no confirmation message and someone is trying to use your address to set up a Facebook account, that account will be active for only a short time because Facebook deactivates unconfirmed accounts after three days.

The spoofed messages, which are designed to look exactly like Facebook’s own notifications, often contain links to spam sites or malware activated when you click a link or an attachment.

Some could also be phishing attempts to get you to type in your Facebook password so your account can be hijacked.

Facebook has a fairly extensive list of scams and threats on its site, which can be found by clicking the Threats link at

www.facebook.com/security.

The page also has links to other resources, like how to report account abuse.