My grandmother has been through the same thing. She was scammed out of all of her savings by accounts impersonating a particular celebrity. Thankfully the bank returned all of the money, but the perpetrators will never be caught, they operate out of Nigeria (one of them attached their phone to her Google account.)

Unfortunately these fake celebrity accounts are swarming her like locusts again. We tried to educate her about not using her real name online, not giving out information or adding unknown people as friends, but there's a very sad possibility that she doesn't fully understand what she's doing.

It was emotionally difficult going through her laptop to gather evidence for the bank. They know exactly how to romance and pull on heart strings, particularly with elderly people.

Meta's platforms are a hive of scammers and they should be held accountable.

> adding unknown people as friends

The number of my outer circle of friends who fall for the “copied profile” adding of unknown people or accept a friend request from the attractive young woman who somehow is interested in them is shocking. (I’m gauging this from looking at the “mutual friends” in the friend request.)

My friend is a bank manager. He says everyday 2-3 elderly people come in confused about a scam.

This is a silent crisis impacting almost eveyone. My grandma personally had her gold stolen by a scammer.

She is now in a home for dimensia.