Facebook puzzle

[jno]

I'll try this here before I go to Technology as lots of you are FB whizzes.

I got an email on my Hotmail account from Joe Soap (not his real name) asking me to be his friend on FB. He also listed several other FBers I might know: Harry A, Mary B, Terry C...

- I do have a FB page (I rarely use it) but it's not connected to my Hotmail account in any way.

- I don't know Joe Soap and don't want to be his friend. But...

- I DO know Harry, Mary and Terry. Their photos show that they are the people I know; but I didn't know they were on FB and they don't know I am.

So... how does someone I never heard of know who my real-life friends are?? Is this some kind of scam?

All I can think of is that I have probably contacted all these people via Hotmail sometime over the years, though none of them is on my contacts list. Does that suggest Joe Soap has somehow hacked into my entire Hotmail history?

I am baffled. All suggestions welcomed.

[AB Editor]

Facebook "suggests" friendships to people.

It is likely some other friends of yours are friends with Joe Soap and thus he is sending out friendship requests to everyone "suggested" to him.

It isn't a scam. But if you don't know Joe Soap it is spam.

Spare Ed

[jno]

thanks. Ed. But if my friends don't know I'm on FB, why would they tell Joe Soap to invite me?

I have in fact now checked with one of these friends and she says she's never heard of Joe Soap either. So something odd is going on, but as I am an internet innocent I don't know what it is.

[AB Editor]

OR you might be in the same group or be a fan of similar things. Facebook has become a big problem in terms of being a private place recently.

Spare Ed

[jno]

nope, I'm not in any group and not a fan of anything.

[Robinia]

jno my son said they send out random invitations based on age, location, schools attended and names you may have searched for...I get them (& I never use my account) mostly naming people who went to the same school. In fact I had one this morning & I only recognised two of the six names.

[jno]

I haven't given out any of that info, Robinia, or any other info either; joined no groups, set up no networks. I only signed up in the first place to stay in touch with a friend who'd gone to the Gulf to work, and she's back now (in fact we're lunching today) so I almost never even visit the page. I know Joe Soap doesn't know Mary B, as I asked her; and I don't know him; so how does he know I know her?

I have had emails like this from FB itself, but this one came (allegedly) from an individual. That's why I think it's all very suspicious.

Anyway, I haven't replied.But I still don't see how it works.

[ummmm]

So when you joined you didn't fill out any personal info?

[jno]

the only thing in my 'basic information' is age and sex (I presume they were wanted as a security check, I forget), and they don't show in my profile; plus my name, and the email address I sign in with (not my Hotmail one). That's the lot. Nothing there that would even remotely suggest I know Mary. Mary didn't know I was on FB and I didn't know she was. Neither of us knows Joe Soap. All very peculiar.

[ummmm]

It does sound strange.

FaceBook use to suggest people that were connected in some way. Now it seems to throw up random people.

[cherrychapstick]

hi jno , my boyfriend got that a few weeks back but the person who supposedly sent them had changed his status telling everyone it wasn't him ,although my b/f recognised some of the names which was very weird it was fake xxx take care xx

[China Doll]

Are they friends of other friends? I get recommendations of people I know are ABers but only because they're friends with someone else I am actually friends with who I met on AB but have since gotten to know away from this site.

I currently have two people requesting to be my friends who's name I don't recognise and who don't appear to know anyone I do so I imagine they'll be waiting a long time.

[swedeheart]

Between them, Facebook and Google know more about us than we'll ever know about ourselves. I can confirm what Robinia says about suggestions to befriend people whose names you've searched for. That in itself wouldn't be so odd, but get this: I have my own "real" account but also a fake one for the precise purpose of being able to snoop around without getting caught out as a snooper. But as it turns out, I get suggestions on my real account to befriend people I've snooped for while logged into my snoop account =:0 I suppose my IP address gives me away.

This doesn't answer your question, I just wanted to stand up and SHARE :) One possible explanation to your puzzle would be that Facebook is in fact the Akashic records http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akashic_records ;-)

BTW I've noticed that the ads here on AB also know things about me that AB shouldn't know.

[jno]

Thanks, people... consider yourselves all Marked as Best Answer. Maybe there is some ornate trail to someone Mary and I both know, though how it came into the mysterious Joe Soap's hands I cannot imagine. Anyway, despite my yearning for friends, I won't be signing him up.

Swedeheart, NoMercy was pointing out on a travel thread the other day that if you look for a price on EasyJet, say, then go and check on Monarch, then come back to EasyJet, EasyJet's price will have gone up, presumably because they spot your IP address and guess that you've looked elsewhere and haven't found a better fare so they're free to raise their own. Maybe something like that is happening to your accounts.