Why People Create Fake Facebook Profiles — And How They Try to Use Your Identity

Introduction

It just happened to me. Someone cloned my Facebook profile, and my Facebook friends started receiving friend requests that appeared to be from me. Every so often, someone reaches out to let me know they received a friend request from “me” — even though I never sent one. If it hasn’t happened to you yet, it probably will. And it raises the same question every time: why would anyone create a mirror of your Facebook profile and pretend to be you? What do they gain from it? As it turns out, quite a lot — and none of it is good.

They Do It Because Your Identity Is Valuable

A cloned Facebook profile may look harmless at first glance. It’s just your name, your photos, and a few copied details. But scammers go to the effort of duplicating your profile for a simple reason: trust. Your friends trust you. Your family trusts you. Your community knows you. When a scammer uses your identity, they are essentially borrowing all that trust for their own benefit.

1. Targeting Your Friends for Scams

The most common motivation behind cloning a Facebook profile is to reach out to people who know you and exploit their relationship with you. A fake “you” might contact your friends with requests for money (“I’m in a bind—can you help me out?”), send suspicious links (“Can you vote for me in this contest?”), share malware or phishing messages, or request personal information. Because the message appears to come from someone they care about, victims let their guard down. This is why scammers prefer cloning a real person over building a profile from scratch — they gain instant credibility.

2. Gaining Access to Accounts

Once a scammer tricks someone into clicking the wrong link or sharing a code, they can use that opening to take over Facebook accounts, gain access to email or banking logins, or spread the scam further by messaging the victim’s contacts. One successful impersonation can quickly snowball into dozens of compromised accounts.

3. Using Your Identity for Larger Scams

Some cloned profiles serve as “starter identities” for broader schemes, including marketplace scams, investment or cryptocurrency fraud, romance scams, and fake charity solicitations. Your real identity gives these frauds a believable foundation, making it easier for scammers to deceive and manipulate others.

4. Collecting Information About You

Even if they don’t target your friends directly, scammers may use the mirrored profile to gather more information about you. They can observe who interacts with the fake account, what details your friends share, access photos that may not be public, and learn about your work or family connections. This information can lead to more serious identity theft or future social-engineering attempts.

Why It’s So Common Now

The reason this tactic is so prevalent is simple: it works. Even the most careful people sometimes accept friend requests without double-checking. Scammers know that a cloned profile has a far better chance of being accepted than a brand-new one. The more connections they get, the more powerful — and dangerous — the fake account becomes.

How to Protect Yourself

1. Hide your friends list: Set it to “Only Me.”
2. Make personal photos visible only to friends: Especially your profile and cover photos.
3. Use two-factor authentication: This helps prevent an actual account takeover.
4. Report fake profiles immediately: Ask friends to do the same, as multiple reports speed up removal.
5. Post a quick warning if needed: A simple announcement that you’re not behind any new friend requests can stop the scam before it spreads.

The Bottom Line

People clone Facebook profiles because it gives them something extremely powerful: your reputation. They use your identity to create trust, deceive your contacts, and open the door to financial or personal harm. By staying alert and putting a few protections in place, you can make your profile much harder to copy — and much easier to defend.