Facebook Account Cloning: How to Spot It and Stop It

Additional reporting by Palash Volviokar

Facebook account cloning is a simple scam, but it's getting harder to spot. A scammer will create a copy of your real account, using your Facebook profile photo and other public information, to trick your friends with scams or spam that appear to be from someone they know and trust. A cloned account may convince your friends to send money, collect passwords or other information, or spam them with posts and messages for sketchy sites. For example, the cloned account could message your friend saying they need cash to handle an emergency, like being mugged and needing funds to get back home.

What makes this trickier now is that scammers are using AI tools to mimic your writing style, pulling details from your public posts to craft messages that actually sound like you. The old-school "I need cash" message is still common, but the newer AI-assisted versions can reference things you've talked about publicly, making them far more convincing.

You may think your friends are too smart to fall for a scam like that, but because these requests come from you, they may respond without thinking. That's why I recommend double-checking any new Friend requests from people you're already Friends with on Facebook before accepting. If you're friends in real life, they won't mind you contacting them outside of Facebook to confirm.

The good news is that account cloning isn't a hack or an exploit. Your Facebook password is still safe, and your account hasn't been compromised. But being the source of scams and spam for your friends is probably not the position you want to be in. So, I have advice for how to tell if your account has been cloned and, more importantly, how to prevent it from being cloned in the first place.

How do I know if my Facebook account has been cloned?

You can search Facebook for your name to see if there are other accounts pretending to be you, but this often isn't very helpful. Someone else on Facebook likely legitimately shares your name. While you can do this to look for duplicates, not every result will be someone maliciously cloning your account. Scammers are also clever enough to block your real account from seeing the cloned account, so you can't find and report it.

One newer tactic to watch for: cloners are exploiting Facebook's additional profiles feature, which lets users create up to four sub-profiles per account. A scammer could pose as your "professional" or "hobby" alt-profile, giving a plausible reason for a duplicate friend request. If a friend receives a request from what appears to be a secondary profile of yours, they're more likely to accept it without question.

There's also an emerging threat worth keeping an eye on. AI voice cloning has been used in phone scams for a while now, and it's starting to creep toward Messenger voice notes. It's not widespread in Facebook cloning specifically yet, but the technology is there, and it's something to be aware of going forward.

You're far more likely to discover your account has been cloned after the fact. Before a cloner can scam your friends, they have to send a friend request from the cloned account, which can set off red flags for the security-savvy. If your friends accept the friend request without thinking, they'll start receiving messages that may not sound like you. When a friend tells you they've received a friend request or a suspicious message, it could be a sign that your account has been cloned.

For context, Meta removed 10 million fake profiles in the first half of 2025 alone, so this is not a small problem.

What should I do if my Facebook account has been cloned?

Facebook doesn't allow accounts to impersonate others. If you find a cloned account, you and your friends should report it to Facebook. Just go to the cloned profile and:

1. Click the three-dot menu icon beneath the cover photo.
2. Select "Report Profile."
3. Choose "Fake profile," then select "Me."
4. Hit Submit and follow any remaining instructions onscreen.

Getting multiple friends to also report the cloned profile helps speed up Meta's review and removal process. The more reports a fake account receives, the faster it tends to be taken down. Once you've reported the page, post to your timeline and tell friends not to accept new friend requests from you, and to ignore any messages that might be scams.

How can I avoid Facebook account cloning?

Avoiding your account from being cloned and protecting your friends from associated scams and spam is really simple. The key is hiding your Facebook friends list. Anyone who clones your account will use your public friends list as a list of targets. But if your Friends list is private, it's much harder for them to come up with the list of your friends and family.

I have my Facebook friends list hidden, and I advise everyone I know to do the same. Hiding your friends list only takes a few quick clicks, and I'll walk you through it in my story on How to Hide your Friends List on Facebook.

Beyond that, I'd recommend locking down your overall profile visibility. Go to Settings > Audience and Visibility, and review who can see your posts, friends list, and personal details. There are a lot of settings here offering granular control over who can see your profile details, so make sure to limit them as much as possible. The less public information scammers can access, the harder it is for them to create a convincing clone.

Some regions, like India, Bangladesh, and Egypt, have access to a one-click Profile Lock feature (tap the three-dot menu on your profile and select "Lock Profile"), but this isn't available in the US, UK, Canada, or most of Europe. For those of us in the US, manually tightening your Audience and Visibility settings is the way to go.

One more thing worth noting on the privacy front. Meta does label AI-generated content with "AI info" tags using C2PA and IPTC metadata detection. However, cloners using AI tools that don't embed these watermarks bypass the system entirely. Don't assume that just because a photo or video isn't labeled as AI-generated, it's authentic.

How do I know if my Facebook account has been hacked rather than cloned?

When your account is cloned, someone on Facebook is pretending to be you. But when your account is hacked, someone has gained access to your Facebook password and is actually using your Facebook account to be you. The most obvious signs of hacking are spam posts from your real account or being locked out of your account entirely. It's possible someone has hacked your account using stolen credentials, but they haven't taken any action yet. To confirm if your Facebook account has been hacked, you can check for any unusual logins:

1. Open Facebook from your web browser.
2. Click your profile photo in the upper right to open the menu, then select "Settings & privacy."
3. Select "Settings."
4. Open the Meta Accounts Center from the left navigation pane, select "Password and security," then select "Where you're logged in."

The "Where you're logged in" section shows every device that is logged in to your account and when they last logged in. Review each login to decide if it's you.

If every login was you, then you have nothing to worry about. Unrecognized logins are not a sure sign you've been hacked (you may have simply logged in on a family member's device or an old phone and forgotten about it), but you can make sure you're protected by following the steps below.

One thing worth noting: Messenger now defaults to end-to-end encryption for personal one-on-one chats and calls, which has been the case since December 2023. That means if someone does gain access to your account, they won't be able to read your existing personal messages from another device. However, group chats, business chats, and Marketplace chats are not end-to-end encrypted, so those conversations could still be exposed.

What should I do if my Facebook account has been hacked?

If you don't recognize a login, click on the menu (three dots) for that login and choose "Log out." This will boot out the possible hacker. After that, change your password and set up stronger login security:

1. Open Facebook from your web browser.
2. Click your profile photo in the upper right to open the menu, then select "Settings & privacy."
3. Select "Settings."
4. In the Meta Accounts Center, select "Password and security." There, you'll find the options for changing your password, enabling two-factor authentication, and setting up passkeys.

I'd recommend setting up a passkey as your primary login method if you can. Meta launched passkey support for Facebook in June 2025 on iOS and Android. Passkeys use your phone's biometrics (fingerprint or face) to sign you in, and they're phishing-resistant, which means even if someone steals your password, they can't get in without your physical device. You can set this up by going to Accounts Center > Password and Security > Passkey. SMS-based two-factor authentication is still available as a fallback, but passkeys are a much stronger option.

Even if you haven't been hacked, turning on alerts for unrecognized logins is a good idea. When it's enabled, Facebook will tell you if an unrecognized device logs onto your account, so you'll know immediately if a hacker has access to your account. In the “Password and security” section of Meta Accounts Center, you'll also find the option for "Login alerts." I recommend selecting both in-app notifications and at least one email address.

Unfortunately, when your account is hacked, the hacker usually changes your password, email address, and phone number, making it very difficult for you to access or recover your account. If this happens to your account, Facebook has an account recovery process you need to follow to regain access. One option Meta now offers is video selfie verification, which compares your face to your profile photos to confirm your identity. That said, results have been inconsistent. Many users report failed verifications and account lockouts, so government ID uploads remain an option in some recovery flows.

The good news is that Meta has been making solid improvements here. In December 2025, the company launched a redesigned Security Checkup tool, AI-powered adaptive recovery flows that adjust to your specific situation with clearer guidance, and an AI support assistant that's being tested globally on Facebook. Meta says the relative success rate of hacked account recovery has improved by more than 30% in the US and Canada. Anecdotally, though, we've still heard mixed results from our friends and readers.

Read next: Deepfake Scams Are Flooding Social Media. This Tool Catches Them

Updated on 2/11/2026

[Image credit: screenshot via Techlicious, phone mockup via Canva]

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