Facebookgate UK?

[Robert Holbach]

Not sure if anyone has posted about this yet, but the "Facebookgate" issue that Brad J Ward highlighted in the US last December seems to be happening in the UK now...

There are a few dozen fake Facebook profiles that try to appear as if they belong to universities. Often, the username is the name of the University, but as plural rather than singular. Each of the profiles has set up a uni-specific group for "(uni name) Freshers 2009" and posted some generic (very informal, partially dubious) advice. Most groups use the same stock photo. For example:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=47851588580
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=32969568346

(and dozens more - if I search Facebook for a phrase from the generic group description text - "Uni will be amazing, FACT!", I can find many, but I'm told this did not work for some colleagues, so it may only work for people in University networks?)

As many of those groups have a discussion thread that links to a site about "Fast Student Cash", and no other links exist anywhere in the group, I can only presume that it is the makes of that site who are running this scheme / scam.

Thought I'd mention it in case any UK users are interested. I've passed the info on to the relevant people within my own institution, who are dealing with it now. I am, however, curious whether anyone else has reacted to such a UK group, and if so, how, and with what level of success?

[Bradjward]

Very interesting, will follow this thread closely. Good find!

[Tom Abbott]

Looks like this is very widespread - a bit of digging about today has revealed hundreds of Facebook pages relating to this across many universities.

[Tom Abbott]

http://www.facebook.com/s.php?q=Uni+will+be+amazing%2C+FACT!&init=q&sid=59c645e3211beb0b47e660eccb3a1f3e#/s.php?q=Uni%20will%20be%20amazing%2C%20FACT!&init=q&sid=59c645e3211beb0b47e660eccb3a1f3e&n=-1&o=4&hash=3e6355563e63eb9803e305e6fcb30446&sf=p&s=0

shows a small part of the problem