MySpace Scams

A Liverpool woman hoping to keep in touch with family members who live outside New York did everything possible to protect her identity when she set up a MySpace profile.  Somehow she still found herself the victim of identity theft and harrassment.

When you create a MySpace account, all you need is an email address.  You don’t even need to verify you’re the person you say you are.  Michelle McGriff found out that with no way to verify who is creating the account, someone can pretend to be you on MySpace.

McGriff is mother of three who has been running a daycare for years.  She started a MySpace account a few weeks ago and a short time later, she found two MySpace accounts with her name and picture on both of them.

One of the accounts was the one she made and it was marked private with no personal information given.  But on the other account, an imposter divulged her full name, unlisted address, phone numbers, and some pretty terrible descriptions about sex and partying.

The person most likely knows McGriff because the fake account holder is handing out her cell number and sending messages to other people online pretending to be her.  McGriff has already received phone calls from men looking to meet her.

Michelle McGriff says she is afraid that the person who is pretending to be her will set up a meeting date and put her, her children or her daycare business in danger.

The Onondaga County District Attorney’s office says web profiles like the ones on MySpace are treated much like free space on billboards. Unless McGriff was facing a real threat, there is no law to protect internet users from that form of embarassment. 

If the fake account holder contacts Michelle McGriff, it could fall under aggravated harassment and that’s when criminal action can take place. If no direct contact is made, then the only thing a person in McGriff’s position can do is sue for libel.

McGriff does plan to file a lawsuits and to demand that MySpace takes down the fake account.  Before that happens, she may have to change all of her phone numbers for protection.

BY FRANK MAIN

MySpace.com touts itself as “a place for friends.”

But a Naperville teenager discovered the social networking Web site also is a place for sexual predators, authorities said Friday.

Gerald Wheeler, 40, is being held in Salt Lake City on federal charges of using MySpace to coax the 13-year-old girl to engage in sexual conduct.

“This coordinated effort has taken another sexual predator off the street and off line,” Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said.

In July, the girl’s father contacted Naperville police and reported his daughter received obscene messages on her MySpace site and her Tagged.com account from people calling themselves Mike and Brian, authorities said.

The messages allegedly asked her to fly to New York to enter a modeling contract in exchange for engaging in sexual conduct.

With the help of her father, police found photos of the girl in sexual poses, authorities said.

Computer messages traced

Investigators traced the computer messages to an Internet cafe and gaming facility in Salt Lake City. The owner said Wheeler was a manager and the only one with access to the computer at the time the girl was contacted.

A cell phone number for “Brian” belonged to a former employee who was close to Wheeler, authorities said.

Wheeler was convicted in 1994 in Utah of attempted forcible sex abuse, a felony, and was placed on the state’s sex offender registry, records show.

“Wheeler is a prime example of why parents need to educate themselves on the Internet and pay close attention to their children’s activity while online,” Naperville police Sgt. Bill Davis said.

Kids used to hang out in vacant lots, then in malls and now, online.

BeNetSafe helps you to be a better parent by lovingly and effectively “chaperoning” your children online, just as you always have, offline.

BeNetSafe will monitor your child’s information on the Internet and provide you with detailed reports and feedback alerting you to potentially dangerous and risky behavior.

This one appears to be the result of a profile hijack. If you find out that your are posting these, change your password immediately.