64) Online Identity

Back in March, I began emailing back and forth with someone I'd met through my Tumblr blog (the very neglected nataliefoundit.tumblr.com). He sent a particularly insightful response to one of my more personal posts, and we became pen pals shortly after. After a few weeks of life-story/current-situation correspondences, I mentioned my new Internet friend to my mom. Her first response was, "You've never met him...are you sure he is who he says he is?"

The Internet is notorious in its anonymity. Pedophiles posing as tweens in chat rooms, scammers emailing as the Nigerian lottery or posting an apartment on Craigslist owned by a suddenly abroad landlord. The separation between real life and one's online persona can make it difficult to tell who's who.

But with the advent of social media, one's on/offline identity has gained more transparency. My pen pal is on Facebook, has a good number of Facebook friends, and participates regularly with status updates and new photos. This, to me, is proof enough that he is who he says he is. (Above: Me holding a print of his that he sent me - more proof!)

So what of scams via social media? About a year ago, a Facebook friend who I'd gone to middle school with messaged me through Facebook chat. Frantically, he wrote that he was studying abroad in London, but that his bags had been stolen from his dorm. He was wondering if I could wire him some money so he could fly home. Writing the yarn out here makes it sound obvious that it was a total scam, but whoever was feeding me this story at the time was doing a fantastic job at coming across as genuinely in trouble. He was responding to my replies accordingly - this wasn't one of those automated bots that says, "Can you repeat that?" when you type in an expletive. The only reason I knew it was a scam was because I hadn't talked to this kid since 8th grade graduation. Of all his Facebook friends, I would probably be the second to last person he would contact for money. But if it had been one of my closest friends, I would've had trouble distinguishing it as a scheme.

Thankfully, not many masterminds have the time or wherewithall to concoct an elaborate social media con. I'm surprised (and relieved) that things like this, this, and this don't happen more often. It seems that it's not the common crooks you have to worry about - it's the social media enthusiasts who know the ins and outs of the outlet.