Facebook Used to Scam Poker Fans
Written by Renee K | Thursday, March 4th, 2010
Have you done a search for your favorite professional poker player on Facebook lately and come across no fewer than twelve Daniel Negreanus? It has come to light that poker fans are being scammed on the social network, Facebook, by rogues posing as poker professionals and then requesting money from “their” supporters.
The scammers simply pose as a poker professional and open a Facebook account under that name. They then wait until they have several “friends’” on their account and start requesting cash or loans, either directly or as a transfer between poker sites.
Facebook members have been asked to back ‘pros’ at poker tournaments online and then receive payouts as a percentage of the winnings.
It is not yet know how many of these ‘pros’ are at work on Facebook, but it stands to reason that when word gets out of the scam, even more will pop up online hoping to shave a couple of hundred dollars off unsuspecting players.
Online poker players are thus urged to exercise caution when transferring money to any source that they are not familiar with, and make sure that they protect their identities and private information.
There have been ‘sightings’ of Daniel Negreanu, Willim Tann and Mike Matusow, to name just a few. A number of complaints have involved a fake Mike Matasow offering fans a piece of the action in major poker tournaments.
The bottom line is for poker players to realize that just because a Facebook account features a photo of a poker professional and has supplied genuine information about him or her (that’s what Wikipedia’s for!), it means that the poker player is the genuine guy behind the account.
Exploitation over the internet is, unfortunately, a simple matter and players should always be on their guard against anything that seems remotely fishy.
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· Written by Renee K · Filed Under Poker News · Comments Off
