Scot Cregan and his many personalities
Military Times tells the story of Scot Cregan, a Navy public affairs officer whose identities have been replicated by thieves on Facebook about a hundred times by his estimate;
Cregan has seen himself on Facebook under the names “David Marc Cregan,” “Eric Cregan,” “Creagan Anderson,” “Cregan Diamond,” (um, okay) and his favorite, the ever-original “Cregan Cregan.” To date, he estimates there have been over 100 fake profiles on social media using his information.
Cregan, who is a reservist currently serving on active duty, routinely reports the fake profiles to Facebook but the automated format of the complaint process means in some of the cases Facebook comes back to him and claims the profiles don’t meet their criteria for removal.
“About 70 percent of the time they take them down right away, but if you can believe it, there are times I have to go back to them and say ‘Hey, this is really not me and I’m for sure not a “private in the Navy” as they have listed.'”
Hardly a week goes by that we don’t get messages from folks asking for help to get fake profiles removed. The only time that my own profile was replicated was when the DRG tried to troll for my friends. Facebook was pretty quick to respond. Now one of my daily task is searching on my name to find phony profiles.
But if these trolls weren’t successful, they wouldn’t do it.
Category: Who knows
We anti-social types don’t face this problem. We don’t FB, Snapshot, Tweet, Whatever. Somehow, we survive. Cregan had a job-based reason for the social media account, at least originally. Seems to me that a FB account without his particulars which then refers to a secure Navy account might help.
You don’t need a facebook account. All a scammer needs is to find a few pictures, ANYWHERE.
I don’t have any media accounts…FB, Twitter, My Space, etc.
But, I did get a contact request from a General McCrystal on Skype once…from Ghana.
The general needed you, and you let him down?
I still get e-mails from King Rootintootintuttifrutti from the Kingdom of Southwestern Bushwanga about an inheritance of 17B Samoleyans that needs to be transferred into my account.
What should I do???
Tell the King that you’ll only accept cash, delivered by camels in swim trunks, and that he has to show up with the cash at the nearest Federal Reserve Bank to verify the deposit.
I get those ‘you’ve inherited gazillions’ e-mails, but they’re all addressed to someone named Dear Sir, or sometimes Deersir, and I have no idea who those people are.
I wish the Russian girls would leave me alone.
I get the ones about the MILF’s that are “unhappy” with their husbands and are looking for someone else to make them go wooowooowooo.
I’m sick of the penis enlargement offers. If anything, I’m looking for penis reducing techniques!
Chief,
When my father died 20+ years ago, I was personal rep/executor for his “estate”. One of the things I did was set up an estate account to handle all financial transactions. Several years after his death when we sold his house, there was not a reason to keep the account open.
Over the last decade or so whenever one of these persistant clowns bugs me, I play along and provide the bank routing number and account number. When they try to access the account it sets off all kinds of bells and whistles at the bank. and they show up on the radar.
COOL, Kudos to you for giving them the heartburn they deserve!!
At the Brad Christensen exhibit — a classic scambaiter — he used to give account numbers like 2882-98-UR-2-DUM.
Since your a corpsman, think about something ghey, like inserting a silver bullet into a sqeakhole, and you should be fine.
I am not on Facebook or all that other stuff. My over the age 70 friends complain about the kids sitting at a table with their phones out and not talking to each other, then when we go out, they are on facebook showing off their grand kids. WTF. I am not computer savvy so I pay AT&T extra for tech support and yet see these 10 year old kids working these devices faster than I can field strip my 70 series Colt Gold Cup. Anyone out there know what trolling means while we are on the subject.
Yes, Jeff, an example is Joe the Rockclimbing Idiotstick who used to post nonsense on TAH until Our Glorious Leader deprived him of his notch on the bedpost.
I enjoy the his absence and miss him like my last toothache.
Jeff, people don’t always share the same definition for online trolling. My own is that it’s typically a form of anti-social behavior used to infuriate others, and not for the purpose of expressing an honest opinion or using logic to win an argument. It’s the online equivalent, without any risk of getting curb stomped, of going into a biker bar and yelling, “Anybody who rides a Harley is a pussy!”
Personally, before I get too upset with the kind of stupid shit people say online, I usually try to keep in mind the old saying:
“Fighting on the internet is like the Special Olympics. Even if you win, you’re still retarded.”
Thank you Perry! And you owe me a keyboard since I just spit coffee through my nose and all over it. LMAO!
With all the nonsense that can be generated by exposure to mass quantities of viewers, and the dimwitted behavior of people who populated the DRG, I took the route of not being on social media.
On a side note, Snapchat’s stock dropped substantially in value when Kerry Jenner (who?) said she doesn’t use it.
Good reason to avoid those things or use them carefully.
I believe he is the long lost Nigerian prince, his throne and kingdom await.
I got bounced from FB about three or so years ago. Mine was the conservative view in a disagreement among several people and FB thought I had abused the system. My opinion was ‘inconsistent with FB policies’ or some such crap. No, there was absolutely no profanity involved. I didn’t threaten anyone. Just SLAM, my ability to post was removed. I have since received approval to post, but have no plans to do so. I occasionally go over there to see what is going on, but I will never again post.
IMHO being popular on Farcebook is akin to being the popular Patient in a Mental Hospital.
Yeh, they bounced me too, but the reason was, I wouldn’t give them my phone number? Screw’em they didn’t need it and I didn’t want to talk to the a.h.’s anyway!
I believe facebook, etc. was designed for teenage girls– hope they will outgrow the silliness. God made bars so you can meet people and/or have a good time.
I admin an anti military romance scammer facebook page and help another group ID and report scammers.
Iv’e been doing it for over 4 years and have really been shocked about how much it goes on.
Scamming is a PROFESSION in West African countries. Ghana and Nigeria are hotbeds for scammers. The countries are absolute Shitholes, but they have 1st world access to the internet. The government all but condones scamming, because it brings 1 BILLION dollars a year from US victims alone.
Scammers have dozens of scripts and scams they work out,and run several fake profiles that “catfish” victims.
Once they find a public album that a person puts up they can copy every single one to build profiles with. There is a retired Army Captain in Texas by the name of Terry Micheal Hestilow that had his photos copied. He has constantly had to petition facebook to get them taken down. At one point there were over 150 fake accounts with his images on them. Chances are there are 1-2000 all together.
As an IT engineer – and by no means an expert in Information Security… or anything – I can tell you that unless you are a Mennonite/Amish or a member of the Mum$!!tuwam^^i Tribe, you have a digital footprint and are not safe.
You can only reduce the exposure and limit vulnerability.
It’s good to have a spam email account and a secure separate email account.
I like FarceBook because I can communicate with my family, classmates and all of my reprobate Army buddies spread to the 4 corners.
Yesterday we had an executive video chat for our Illuminati… I mean Alumni.
It was pretty cool.
The CSM didn’t make the call but I told the guys it’s because he’s on dial-up and his rotary phone is cheap Russian surplus from the 50’s.