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Joe Bonamassa Forum → General Topics → Facebook Con-Artists pretending to be Joe Bonamassa
Another one on twitter just showed up https://twitter.com/jbonamassa02
Yep, and we did our daily sweep yesterday. They make a few new ones of these EVERY... DAMN... DAY
ugh, just have to write it in to our daily schedule. Wake up, pour coffee, fight the scammers. Repeat.
Steven Tyler of Aerosmith is having a helluva time with this scam right now: https://www.facebook.com/steventyler/po … 3803513691
So sad and disturbing. Also is upsetting that some fans do fall for this scams, although it is very easy to spot a fake right away. ( I once had a few fake joebonamassas trailing in my followers - wanted to collect them all lol)
Hope Joe has this taking care of, but I think it is a permanent internet problem now and it is getting more and more common and happening to many people.
On the other side when Real Joe does reply or like your comments ( and I know it happens to few people from this forum 
- how one not doubt it now lol. I did ask Joe during a Meet&Greet who is running his Instagram page. “Just me, all by myself “ - he said. But it was last year so maybe he has somebody helping him now, since he gained so many followers and couple of days ago wrote in comments that he gets a 1000s of private messages a day.
Wow that’s awful.....trolls are everywhere
I am fairly certain that even though he may have help with it now, I don't think anyone in his office would or is supposed to send messages as if it were him. So I would imagine if anyone was sending messages it would have said who was sending. But I think he meant...if you don't know him, he ain't writing you! Certainly though Joe isn' asking fans for money etc.
..
wow! so scary that it is possible to misread my comment the way you wrote here 
I never said that Joe or someone from his office are asking fans for money..... or impersonating him and sending fake messages. Nowhere in my comment it says that What I meant is an attempt to make a joke about this sad situation and say that nowadays there are so many fake things floating around social media, that one might question a real legit thing - hence doubt that it is really Joe who replies to fan's comments on his IG page - which is again, I repeat, was a joke because anybody could easily distinguish replies and comments from fake profiles...
Wow Jane... Just wow...
It's all good Jane. I guess I have to blame my poor writing/understanding skills and not your replies. I am actually laughing now, laughing at myself. And laughing at how we are wowing at each other in this empty place lol ( whoever had anything to say about subject said it at Joe"s sm sites, almost nobody comes here anymore ) The good ole days of forum's fights and discussions are gone, gone, gone... and look at IG page - 1265 comments plus 800 on Twitter. It's if anyone still wanders why Joe is not here anymore lol...
And also few thoughts of mine about Joe's post
yes, I also do believe that his IG page is him and him only, and he is very efficient in banning rude, fake or aggressive users, although it is probably becoming harder and very time consuming. I do think that he will hit a million followers this year
also our Joe is not a Regular Joe anymore and has enough money/legal power to protect himself from all kinds of internet disturbances so I think this situation caused little or any damage to him.
and it is so good and kind of Joe that he is thinking about and protecting his fans
PS: love you Jane, my favorite Bonafriend <hugs>
lol Jane, I should probably refrain from commenting on this thread any further...
My all-time favorite quote:
"I know you believe you understand what you think I said but I am
not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant."
Yes, it's all good!
So sad and disturbing. Also is upsetting that some fans do fall for this scams, although it is very easy to spot a fake right away. ( I once had a few fake joebonamassas trailing in my followers - wanted to collect them all lol)
Hope Joe has this taking care of, but I think it is a permanent internet problem now and it is getting more and more common and happening to many people.
On the other side when Real Joe does reply or like your comments ( and I know it happens to few people from this forum
JBWM here, in other words, Joe's Social Guy, and I can tell you that Joe's Instagram is 100% him. We don't post anything on it, ever. In fact, that's why we made other accounts to support the brand like https://www.instagram.com/shop.jbonamassa/
I am fairly certain that even though he may have help with it now, I don't think anyone in his office would or is supposed to send messages as if it were him. I dunno but it was a thing a while back with facebook because there was much confusion over who was posting what on his facebook page. So I would imagine if anyone was sending messages it would have said who was sending. But I think he meant...if you don't know him, he ain't writing you! i don't know how instagram messages work anyway because i only log in from PC and its not an option. blahblah Certainly though Joe isn' asking fans for money etc.
Is a shame all around, what a crazy world thats so hard to keep up with but makes the music all that more important....
Nobody at J&R would EVER EVER message anyone pretending to be Joe. If I ever reply to a comment or a message I'll always sign it as -JBWM or Joe's Digital Marketing Director or something similar.
So I think it's fair to explain a bit more about what we're doing over at Joe HQ to *try* to fight this. For the last few years we have been paying a company that specializes in helping businesses like ours identify fake social profiles as soon as they're created to then review them and request that Facebook/Insta/Twitter take them down. But as you can imagine, kill one account and 5 more appear in it's place. It's literally dozens of accounts each day.
Read the comments in Joe's Instagram post about this and you'll see that it's not just Joe. It's everyone from other artists to sports stars to politicians. I talked to a fan that said she got a message last week from Gregg Allman... and he died in 2017.
Facebook has told us on many occasions that they have no idea how to stop the problem. Same from Twitter.
For anyone who would say "Go after those scammers" - yea, that's impossible as well. Most are from Ghana and Nigeria in Africa which do not consider these crimes. The first thing that the scammers do after using a fake social account is to say "Hey, text me on my personal cell phone" and give an untraceable internet phone number with a US area code. They do this because they know they only have a few hours to hunt for prey before we kill their accounts.
Google "Bonamassa Scam" and click on the first link: https://content.jbonamassa.com/Facebook-Scams.html that page explains a lot and has a great bit from SNL "A woman in Chicago was scammed out of more than $11k by a Bruce Springsteen impersonator she met online. Now these scams can be tricky so one way to tell that he's not the real Bruce Springsteen is that he asks to borrow $11k"
Joe Bonamassa Forum → General Topics → Facebook Con-Artists pretending to be Joe Bonamassa
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