They thought the Facebook message was from a friend. Now most of their money is gone

He thought the Facebook message came from an old high school friend named Joyce.

It didn’t.

He didn’t realize it until it was too late.

By the time he called Wichita police on May 11, most of his and his wife’s monthly income was already gone — $2,100 turned over to a scammer who used the real Joyce's name and photo, set up a fake Facebook account and made false promises of financial help from a reputable international charity.

Elizabeth Rowe says she and her husband are embarrassed they got tricked by one of the millions of fake accounts plaguing Facebook. She's 61. He's 68.

But she hopes talking about how they lost most of their Social Security money this May will keep others from falling for scams targeting unsuspecting Facebook users. It's her obligation, she says.

"We have $9.32 to our name. That doesn’t get you very far," Elizabeth Rowe said.

They managed to buy groceries and pay two bills with the money that was left after the scam. But they're returning previous purchases to stores and skipping doctor's visits that require co-pays to help scrape by.

They fear eviction because there's no cash to pay rent.

Their next Social Security checks won't arrive until mid-June.

"We thought we were dealing with a lifelong friend. ... But it wasn't the Joyce that my husband knew. It was somebody else - somebody involved with a scam," Elizabeth Rowe said.

"We're scared to death," she said, choking back tears. "I never dreamed of being in such a situation in my entire life."

Facebook estimates there were as many as 87 million fake accounts in the last quarter, according to financial filings. The figure is a dramatic jump over 2016 estimates, when around 18 million accounts were fake. Duplicate accounts, which users sometimes create by accident or to have separate professional and personal profiles, aren't included in the estimates.

Facebook has explained the increase in "undesirable" accounts by pointing to "episodic spikes" in fake-account creation in countries such as Indonesia, Turkey and Vietnam.

Impostors often use a real person's name or photos to set up a fake account.

Sometimes they prey on that real person's family and social media friends.

"They create a phony page and basically ask to be invited. ... But you forget that (the person) is already your friend. And you let them in," Avery Elofsson, an assistant district attorney for Sedgwick County, said.

"Now they can troll your information."

Elofsson said reports about scams are the "single largest" type of call the Sedgwick County District Attorney's Office receives.

"But they are also the ones that we can't do anything about," he said, because finding the perpetrators and recovering lost money is difficult.

When the Rowes received the Facebook message promising help, the profile photo associated with the account was of the real Joyce. The name on the account also was hers. Elizabeth Rowe suspects the impostor learned enough personal information about her husband to pull off a successful scam from reading posts the real Joyce wrote, talking about their high school reunion.

"He of course thought, 'This is Joyce' when he received the message," Elizabeth Rowe said.

The story from the fake Joyce was this, according to Elizabeth Rowe:

Lions Club International has one-time grants available for people in need. She just received $100,000. A neighbor of hers got $50,000. She was passing along information because she knew the Rowes didn't have much income and could use some help.

She gave the Rowes a phone number and told them to text instead of call for a quicker response.

The return text came from someone named Allan who often used all capital letters, promising that the grant program was legitimate and urging the Rowes to fill out a form to determine their eligibility.

The couple did.

About an hour later, Allan texted with what appeared to be good news:You qualify to receive between $50,000 and $100,000 within a few hours.

He told them to pay a $2,000 fee to cover program processing and check delivery costs — "things that seemed realistic," Elizabeth Rowe would later say.

Asked how to pay the fees, Allan told the couple buying Amazon gift cards would be quickest and easiest. He told them to take and text to him photos of the front and backs of the gift cards so he could verify that they were real before the Rowes sent them through postal mail.

At the time, Elizabeth Rowe would later say, "We didn't think anything of it."

It wasn't until Allan started asking for more gift cards to pay fees he hadn't mentioned up front that the Rowes worried they'd been taken by a scammer.

A Facebook message to what turned out to be the fake Joyce, asking for the year she graduated, confirmed their suspicion.

"All she had to do is type in two numbers for the year," Elizabeth Rowe would later say. Instead Joyce typed two sentences with an excuse about how she was driving and didn't have time to stop to send the requested information.

Immediately, the Rowes called Amazon to cancel the gift cards.

But it was too late.

Two years ago, Lion's Club International warned people of similar scams on its Facebook page.

When the Rowes contacted their friend, the real Joyce told them she didn't know about the fake account using her name and photo.

"In a short amount of time, in less than an hour, those cards had been used," Elizabeth Rowe said, adding that since the scam she's shutdown her Facebook account.

"One was used in China. They won't tell us where the others were used."

How to protect yourself from scams on Facebook

• Be wary of accepting friend requests from people you don’t know.
  
  
• Before accepting a friend request from a stranger, check out their profile. A recently created page with little or no posts or other information may be a fake.
  
  
• Be cautious when accepting friend requests from someone you thought you were already friends with. Many times scammers create a false version of a friend or family member’s profile to try to gain personal information. If you see a request from someone you are already friends with, contact that person directly and let them know there may be an issue with their account.
  
  
• Never wire money, provide debit or credit card numbers, or prepaid debit or gift card identification numbers to someone you don’t know.
  
  
• Report any fake profiles and fraud attempts to Facebook. You can do this by clicking on the three dots at the bottom right corner of the profile’s cover photo.
  
  
• File a complaint with the Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov.
  
  
• If you have been targeted by one of these scam, share as many details as possible on BBB Scam Tracker at bbb.org/scamtracker. (Source: www.bbb.org.)

Contributing: The Washington Post

This story was originally published May 31, 2018 at 4:06 PM with the headline "They thought the Facebook message was from a friend. Now most of their money is gone."