BOSTON, Mass — Criminals are now turning to a new scam around recording your face.
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They’re using recordings to reach out to the victim’s friends and family, asking for money.
“I’m getting phone calls from people all day asking, are you okay?” said William Stone, a scam victim.
Screen grabs of him have been sent to his Facebook friends asking for help,
Stone believes the video was captured earlier when he accepted a friend’s video call on Facebook Messenger.
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He said he saw his friend and was wondering what was going on.
After a couple of seconds, the video froze, the audio became muffled, and the messages from his friend’s account asked for help.
Before Stone realized it was an imposter, he was locked out of his account with no way of regaining control.
“It looks like whatever video they got of me during that little conversation, they’re now using that video to reach out to my friends and family members and ask for money,” he said.
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“It is as simple as answering a phone call – you can see them-- they’re there, they’re talking --they’re moving,” said Hannah O’Reilly, the victim’s wife.
O’Reilly was sitting next to her husband when it happened and decided to post a warning on her Facebook not to fall for it.
She said the scammer contacted her from her husband’s account before blocking her.
“That person is still on there right now pretending to be him,” O’Reilly said.
The couple has been trying to contact Facebook’s parent company to put a stop to it, with no success, as video calls using the recording of him continue to make the rounds.
Security awareness expert Robert Siciliano, CEO of protectnowllc.com, says the best thing you can do to avoid falling victim is physically call or text message your friend or family member to make sure they contact you on Facebook.
“They screenshot as video on their phone or computer, they take that footage and play it for the scam video,” he said.
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Siciliano said this is a very easy scam to get fooled by because legit audio and video are being used.
“It’s pretty awful knowing there’s someone running around trying to borrow money in my name with my face,” Stone said.
Stone also mentioned that the friend he initially received the video call from has since texted him, confirmed he was hacked, and explained that this happened for two months.
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