'I've had death threats' - Warning as woman targeted in creepy Facebook scam

A woman has told RTE's Liveline programme about falling victim to a creepy identity theft scam after trying to buy Electric Picnic tickets on Facebook. 

In a segment about online scams, the young woman, Melissa, shared her story with stand-in host Katie Hannon, who said the tale would "make people's skin crawl."

The woman explained she was trying to get a ticket for the Laois music festival when she engaged with a female user on Facebook who seemed genuine at first.

She explained that after paying a €50 deposit, she attempted to secure proof of identity from the seller and began probing for more information.

"I asked her for proof of identification, proof of purchase of the tickets and to speak with her over the phone to make sure I was talking to a real person," Melissa explained.

"It was at that point, I realised she wasn't genuine," she added. The seller wouldn't take a phonecall and the savvy Liveline caller said she "sent a video of her speaking but that could have been anyone."

"At that stage, I was blocked when I started making it more difficult for her. As annoying as I got, I said I'll cut my losses on the €50 deposit and not go to the festival," she explained further.

It was after this that things became very strange for the Liveline caller as events took a rather sinister turn.

"A week later I was at home and got a phonecall from someone in work to say that my cousin had contacted work. I was thinking that's very weird as I don't have a cousin. They had left a number for me to call back.

"I called back and it turns out that the person who had tried to scam me for the tickets had then taken my name, my photos and was using them on another Facebook page to scam other people. So, the person who had called my work had obviously looked up my actual page and asked a mutual friend for my location or whatever so they could find out more about me.

"At that point then, it all kind of spiralled. I ended up getting around eight people texting me, sending me horrible messages," Melissa explained. Those people thought the Liveline caller was scamming them when in reality her online identity had been effectively cloned. 

The same thing has happened those people after they had sent money to the scammer, they were blocked and left at the loss of the money and tickets. 

"I got horrible, horrible messages but I tried to explain. Most of them were very understanding when I explained it to them but at that point I went up to the guards and had to contact the UK police about the fraud," she told Katie Hannon.

The caller has put a public post on her Facebook page to say she's been the victim of fraud and included a reference number for people thinking she had scammed them to contact the relevant authorities, but that doesn't seem to deter some people.

"People are texting me saying that's a lie, you're only putting that up to back up your story and I've had death threats and everything. It's been really, really horrible," she added.

Host Katie Hannon said "that is very scary" as she alerted people to other similar stories from around the country. Melissa is still following up with authorities to get to the bottom of it. 

Facebook owner Meta provided a statement to Liveline to explain that they work hard to fight copied accounts and remove "millions of fake accounts every day."

Melissa said some of the accounts using her details and pictures were left up for days or even weeks with one just being disabled this week.