Why do I get spam friend requests on FB?

[SnuggleBuggles]

I am not a fan of anything but ds1's school and I know everyone on that list. No groups. I was briefly part of another local group but dropped that in case it was the problem. The random ones I get I have no common connection to. I get 2-3/ week. Most of them seem to have only a handful of "friends". What options do I need to change to avoid these? Or are they unavoidable?

Beth

[TwinFoxes]

These come to your inbox? I have never had this happen, and I belong to several Facebook groups and am fans of things too. Weird.

[Snow mom]

Are they friend requests that show up on facebook or spam e-mails that say "So and so sent you a friend request on facebook"? The first you would only get if someone is sending you friend requests. The second I think is a common spam technique not related to facebook. I get these e-mails often on my "spam" e-mail account (the one I give out to all the business that want my e-mail address.) My facebook isn't even connected to this e-mail account so it's really easy to just delete those e-mails without opening them.

[SnuggleBuggles]

Sorry, they are just friend requests, not emails. They are just friend requests for people I have never heard of and have no connection to. I haven't gotten any emails either through FB or my real email.

Beth

[kristenk]

What are your privacy settings set to?

Go to Account --> Privacy Settings

then --> contact information
check what you have under "Add me as a friend" and "Send me a message"

then --> Search
check what you have for Facebook search results and public search results

[SnuggleBuggles]

So my "add me as a friend" is set to "everyone". Should I change that? I think most everyone I would want to friend is a connection with someone else I know but I kept the "everyone" so if there is someone I meet, like a friend on here for example, that they could add me.

Under "search" I have "only friends" and I didn't click the "allow" button under public search.

Beth

[kristenk]

That's really weird, Beth. I wonder how people are finding you/requesting you?

Does it say on the friend request how the person found you? That might narrow it down.

FWIW, your settings are similar to mine, although mine are slightly less restrictive (I have "friends of friends" under search), but I don't get the friend requests that you're getting.

[TwinFoxes]

How common is your name? I have a friend I lost touch with who has a common first and last name. I'm tempted to send a request to the person I think is most likely her. But I would send a note explaining myself as well.

Maybe people are just randomly friending you, but that sounds odd.

[Clarity]

I've gotten a handful of friend request from people I do not know. Usually they are friends of my friends or are connected somehow (same hometown, college, etc.) but I've never heard of them. I chalk it up to the fact that some people are just friend collectors and want as many friends as possible without care as to whether they actually know you or not.

[SnuggleBuggles]

They are really sketchy looking, young people sending requests. My name is not common so I really don't get it. It does seem like they are randomly requesting me though I am not even sure how they picked me to friend, kwim? It's seems really weird that someone would think to seek me out.

Beth

[mommylamb]

I've had things like this happen. Once, I got a friend request from someone I didn't know, and I happened to look at her friends list and every single person had my first name. She was just trolling for people with my first name. Weirdo!

[SnuggleBuggles]

I decided to change the friend request thing to just friends of friends. Hopefully that will help!

Beth

[hopeful_mama]

I've had things like this happen. Once, I got a friend request from someone I didn't know, and I happened to look at her friends list and every single person had my first name. She was just trolling for people with my first name. Weirdo!

I used to have the same name as a supermodel - once I got a friend request from a stranger and all his friends had the same name as models. I declined...

[Leeannpk]

I get friend requests from people I don't know at least once a week. Usually they attempt to friend some of my friends, too - but we have no friends in common. I have no idea how they find me or choose me and my friends. Often I will see a status update from a friend that say, "Who the heck is Howard Smith???" (or whatever the name of the person trying to friend us is) and there will be a bunch of replies like "Beats me, he tried to friend me, too!"

[ahrimie]

They are really sketchy looking, young people sending requests. My name is not common so I really don't get it. It does seem like they are randomly requesting me though I am not even sure how they picked me to friend, kwim? It's seems really weird that someone would think to seek me out.

Beth

I used to get these too!!!!! I don't know why it stopped... but I figured that somehow I had been flagged because I was adding a lot of new friends at the time. The requests I got were from people with less than 3 friends usually so I figured somehow they saw that I was friending people quickly?? Not even sure if anyone can see that--but that was my theory :)

I started de-friending people I wasn't really close to anyway that I had just added... voila! No more creepy requests!