TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – He calls himself the Nigerian Prince of Facebook. Women all over the world contact him to say they’re in love with him. Some believe they’re engaged to him. Others are furious at him and accuse him of stealing their money.
After five years, this has become common for retired U.S. Army Colonel Tristan Siegel.
“I can hear the heartbreak in their voices,” Siegel said.
Every time Siegel checks Facebook, he finds more fake profiles of himself. He has found hundreds of profiles. He reports them to Facebook for fraud, but new ones pop up as quickly as imposter pages are deleted.
The pages all share one thing: Photos of Siegel at various stages of his life, including photos of him with his children, who are now grown.
The profile pages sometimes use his full name, but often use a variation of his name. The fake pages almost always use his last name, Siegel, even though sometimes it is listed as a first name. Siegel believes this is because many of his military pictures include a photo with his last name on his uniform.
This Facebook drama started years ago when scammers hacked into Siegel’s Facebook account, stole photos and created fake pages. Crooks pair these Facebook pages with dating website profiles and use the online profiles to trick women into falling in love and eventually sending thousands of dollars to a fake Siegel.
“They’re basically some scenario of, ‘I’m a soldier. I’m trapped somewhere in Syria, send money, I need a plane ticket, this and that,'” Siegel said. “So a lot of women will send thousands of dollars. And I’ve talked to a lot of them, sometimes $8,000 to $10,000 that they’ve lost in these scams.”
One would think shutting down fake profiles of yourself would be as easy as alerting Facebook. Not the case.
“Facebook has come back and said, ‘We’ve reviewed it, and it doesn’t violate community standards so we’re leaving it in place,'” Siegel said.
Scammers remained, but Siegel himself was kicked off Facebook. Every time he started a new account, it was deleted within days because Facebook thought he was the scammer.
Fed up and desperate to get his identity back, Siegel knew he’d Better Call Behnken before more people got hurt.
“It’s embarrassing and inconvenient that I’m locked out of my account and these fakes exist, but for others, this is a life-changing event. This is devastating,” he said.
Siegel isn’t the only military man with fake profiles used by scammers. Better Call Behnken found pages of fake profiles and even warnings from military groups.
After weeks of corresponding with Facebook on Siegel’s behalf, a spokesman said Siegel’s Facebook page is back. They also deleted pages of fake Siegel accounts.
