Golden Gates Member of Parliament Shane Gibson confirmed to reporters yesterday that he has been the victim of several fake accounts on social media, a few of which have solicited money from Bahamians.
The Golden Gates MP said that a total of five accounts have been made, as far as he knows, and he warns Bahamians of such traps.
“Unfortunately a couple of my constituents have told me that they responded to the account. Somebody was promising them that the United Nations had some $38,000 dollars in scholarship funds that they wanted to give out,” he said.
“For some reason a couple of them actually sent money to them and I don’t know why.”
“In one instance a young lady said she sent them $620 dollars over a period of time, I think they were trying to get like $1,000 dollars from her.”
“I just want to sensitive the public that they have to be very careful when they see accounts being used where persons are soliciting money for any reason.”
Mr. Gibson added that the Golden Gates Foundation would never solicit funds to give out funds to their constituents.
The minister of labour said that the authorities have been altered along with Facebook’s management.
“I’ve spoken with police, they said that they actually spoke with Facebook on several occasions about issues arising similar to this but they had a difficulty cooperating, I forget the reason they gave me,” the golden gates mp said.
“Whenever you report it to Facebook they would usually prolong it.”
In June of this year former Deputy Prime Minister Cynthia “Mother” Pratt was also the victim of a fraudulent Facebook account.
In the incident an unknown person made profiles pretending to be Mrs. Pratt, adding family and friends close to her asking for names and telephone contacts in exchange for a percentage of a $46,000 disbursement she was to allegedly receive.
Mr. Gibson said many of the profiles appeared to be him because they had all of his credentials on the page.
Mr. Gibson said he first was noted to the first account in May and as each one was reported it was shut down and made again.
Police are continuing investigations into this matter.