American Expatriate Costa Rica

Beware! Someone could be using your pics to pretend to be you!

Mónica Gamboa has been living a nightmare for the last 9 months: she realized that someone had created a fake Facebook account with her photos. At that moment, she reported it and the profile was closed.

However, a month ago, a man in the street called her “Alejandra Valenciano”. She didn’t understand and he told her that they had spoken via WhatsApp and there was a Facebook profile with her photos and her name.

We found out that it was a very active profile, with many photos of me, comments, like, people’s comments. I filed the complaint and right now they are carrying out the investigation,

explained the 21-year-old woman.

She is a nursing student at Universidad Latina and in Alejandra Valenciano’s profile, they wrote that she works for the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS).

Gamboa eliminated her Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook accounts and she only left 2 pictures of her and she had to write a comment warning about the situation.

I have received messages from doctors who state that this Alejandra text them via WhatsApp. In addition, I’ve been threatened because of the comments this person is making under my name,

declared Gamboa.

Valenciano pretends to be a doctor at Mexico hospital, a situation that has worried Monica because she thinks it could affect her professional life.

Roberto Lemaitre, a computer-crime lawyer, informed that there is not a completely-secure social network. However, there are some recommendations that you should take into account if you use these media on the Internet:

-Read the conditions of service and security.
-Use double authentication (in addition to password, use another mean of security).
-Do not accept strangers as friends.
-Share images only with friends and do not use images that criminals could use.
-If someone is pretending to be you, report it on Facebook and the Judicial Investigation Agency.

crhoy.com