Seen At 11: Facebook Copycats Stealing Identities, Money

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – There's a new, dark side to Facebook and it could put you at risk of losing your money, reputation and friendships.

As CBS2 reported, criminals are copying Facebook pages and pretending to be you—and there's no way to know.

"It's kind of creepy," said Joe Giacalone.

Giacalone says someone stole his Facebook page. They made an exact copy of it, then posed as him and he had no idea.

"It's not a good feeling when you think that you've been had," he told CBS2's Maurice DuBois.

Giacalone only found out after the imposter tried to scam one of his Facebook friends by asking them for money.

"It was embarrassing," he said.

It's called "Facebook cloning" and with just a few clicks of a mouse, cyber criminals create a duplicate account. They have access to your Facebook friends and can do anything pretending to be you—unless a friend catches on.

"I knew this was not Joe Giacalone," Joe Wolf said.

Wolf questioned whether it was really his friend who was contacting him.

"That immediately set off bells," Wolf said.

He alerted the real Giacalone, who was shocked by what he found.

"When I clicked on it, I saw my face, I saw my cover page," Giacalone said. "It was me...for all intents and purposes, it was me."

Giacalone contacted Facebook and they deleted the phony profile.

With 1.5 billion accounts worldwide, there is no shortage of potential targets.

It happened to Zona Koopman too. She thought she was communicating with a friend but it turned out to be a fake.

"I never thought it would happen on Facebook," she said.  "We chit chatted back and forth for several messages."

But then, Koopman says the copycat tried to scam her.

"I said on the message "Well, I know you're a fraud and I'm going to report you,'" she said.

Facebook allows users to restrict who can and cannot have access to your page, but many don't choose settings that offer enough protection. Experts say that's a mistake.

"They're providing tools to people to help them protect themselves and that's always the first line of defense, protect yourself....protect yourself...." tech expert Lance Ulanoff said.

That's what Giacalone is doing now—limiting access—and he's relieved he did it before it's too late.

"Nobody had their reputation ruined, nobody had any money taken from them, so this is an opportunity where I can start changing my online behavior," he said.

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