Friday, April 27, 2018

FAKE Facebook Group called "American Watercolor Society"

The FAKE American Watercolor Society Facebook Group's "About" Page
If you are a watercolourist you need to know that the "American Watercolor Society" GROUP on Facebook is FAKE.

The "About Page" of the FAKE FACEBOOK GROUP looks like the image at the top of the Page.

The REAL American Watercolour Society on Facebook only has a PAGE - this is the URL https://www.facebook.com/AmericanWatercolor/ - and they do NOT have a Group.

How do I know it's Fake?


Post about the FAKE Facebook Group on the REAL American Watercolor Society PAGE

Two things

  1. The real American Watercolor Society has called it out with a post on its Facebook Page - but is having trouble working out how to stop it using their name
  2. The Admin for the group is somebody called Mehmet Serakibi who is Turkish and lives in Saudi Arabia

and another thing....

Artists have been added into this group without their knowledge or consent - and that includes some of those whose faces appear on the image above.

The Facebook Problem


The problem is that:
  • Facebook insists that all accounts (for individuals) MUST be in real names
  • Facebook states that it wants to get rid of any Fake News on Facebook
  • However it has has not created a way for Members to report Groups using Fake Names - as in the name is real but the person creating the Group is just not entitled to use it - and has very obviously used it with the intention of fooling people.
  • It has not created a way like Twitter has to validate and verify the use of a proper registered name.
I reported the group to Facebook. Let's see if it acts on my report. 
This was my report - and I used the Feedback facility to report this.
"You do not have a facility for reporting a Group as a scam.For example this group https://www.facebook.com/groups/266961748074/ called "American Watercolour Society" is misrepresenting itself as an official bona fide society. 
The REAL American Watercolour Society have a Page https://www.facebook.com/AmericanWatercolor/ and are trying to report this group to you for misrepresentation. 
You state accounts MUST have real names so people know you are. 
You say you want us to report Fake News. 
How come you don't allow people to report Fake Groups using the name of a real organisation of the same name?"
If you are concerned about this type of mispresentation of the identity of legitimate art societies can I suggest you:
  • check you have not been fooled/scammed by this group
  • maybe also complain about the fakery

2 comments:

  1. Thank you! I was a member of this group so I left the group. I did report it as a "scam", for what it was worth. Again, thanks!

    ReplyDelete

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