Social Website Identity Theft - actual case(s)

A coworker of mine shared with me three cases of identy theft that have happened to her over the last 5 years. In each case, someone stole her information or pictures. She has some great lessons learned. Enjoy.

Aly
My first encounter with online identiy theft was my sophmore year of college. I got a call from a friend of mine who found a profile on MySpace of a girl named Aly. This person had taken a number of my pictures and created a fake profile, including pictures of my family members. She had over 200 friends and was actively messaging people I had never met posing as "Aly." I reported the profile to MySpace and it was eventually removed.

Michelle
A few years later, my sister's friend had received a FaceBook friend request from a girl named Michelle using my picture. Michelle had used a picture of me from my sophmore year of college. That picture had not been posted on my profile for over a year. Since this girl blocked her full profile from people that she wasn't friends with, I never saw the rest of the profile. I reported the fake profile to FaceBook but it wasn't taken down until months later.

Noelle
A few weeks ago, I received a strange phone call on my company's main line from a man named John. He asked for me. He then asked me if the name "Noelle R." sounded familiar. I told him I hadn't heard the name before. He went on to explain that he lives in South Carolina and met a woman named Noelle online about a year ago in a chat room. He had been talking to her online and on the phone ever since. He recently grew suspicious of Noelle (for reasons he did not explain) so he started doing some research. She had told him that she attended the University of Minnesota so John called a few of the people he knew from that school (at this point John is probably crossing the line too). He asked them if they had ever heard of Noelle and sent them a picture Noelle had sent him of herself. They informed him that the woman in the picture was not Noelle, but was actually me. I also saw the picture and it was from a FaceBook album posted over five years ago. John had looked me up on LinkedIn and found out what company I worked for. He got the general contact information from our website and called. I apologized to John for the confusion but assured him that I was not Noelle. I later found out that Noelle admitted to John that she lied to him and that she had heard of me and found my pictures through a mutual friend. Because I had posted a picture of myself from Freshman year, a random man was able to track me down through other internet sites and was able to find out where I work and contact me directly.

Lessons Learned:
Even if you post pictures and remove them, that still gives people the opportunity to copy them and use them for their own benefit.

No matter how strict your privacy settings are, people can still find a way to access your information.

I am in my mid-twenties so I am aware of the scammers on social networking sites, but younger children are less likely to understand. That is why it is SO important that you, as a parent, are aware of what your child is doing on the internet. Better yet, don't allow them to access these Social Networking sites unless they are old enough to understand the dangers and consequences.

Never post personal information on a public profile - address, phone numbers, email address, etc.

Be open with your kids. Explain to them what the dangers are and why they shouldn't talk to strangers - even online.