These days everyone has a Facebook account so it should appear as no surprise that poker players are very active on the world’s largest social networking site. Unfortunately though, scam artists are taking advantage of this activity by conning people out of their money.
The scam involves people opening up accounts as well known poker pros and fooling others into thinking they are the actual pros. Once the con artist has a person fooled into thinking they are the real poker pro, they ask the person for money transfers at a poker site. They may even go as far as to ask for a loan through bank transfer.
To fool these people, scam artists often offer a piece of their action in poker tournaments. If the supposed pro does well in a tournament, they will pay the backer a percentage of their winnings (pretty much staking). Some of the most popular fake poker profiles are based on Daniel Negreanu, Mike Matusow, and Phil Hellmuth.
People have especially complained that fake Matusows have been offering a piece of the action in major tournaments. Cardplayer Magazine also mentioned how a con artist scammed people out of money by posing as famous poker pro Willie Tan.
One of the techniques people use to set up these fake accounts includes finding pictures of a player and using one of these pictures as the profile picture. Once the account is set up, the scammers will research the poker professional to increase the legitimacy of their offers.
The best advice for avoiding these scams is to avoid any contact with these “poker pros” unless you personally know them. If you don’t know any famous poker pros, don’t fall for the notion that they’ll add you as a friend just because they noticed your skills in some $5 sit and go tournament.
And even if you know these pros personally, don’t give them money. Pros are more likely to get loans from fellow pros than people on Facebook. It’s basically another version of Nigerian lottery schemes.