Scammers have called, they’ve emailed and they’ve texted. According to one local woman, now they’ve expanded their repertoire to copying Facebook profiles to lure unsuspecting friends into their scam.

On Nov. 5, Beaufort County resident Deana Foster reported such an incident to the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office after a Facebook message conversation with her “aunt” ended with threats once Foster caught on to the scam. Foster said she thought it was odd when her aunt “friended” her, because the two were already friends on the social media website.

“It looks like scammers are hacking into or copying Facebook data from individuals, then reaching out to people in the victim’s contact list, posing as that person,” said Major Kenneth Watson, spokesman for the sheriff’s office. “Then they begin a dialogue about a lottery scheme and, acting as that person’s friend, try to get them to contact the lottery.”

Foster said it was when the scammer, posing as Foster’s aunt, informed her the aunt had won $100,000 in the lottery and that Foster had won money too, she knew something was off. The fact that Foster and her aunt usually talk on the phone and never message each other on Facebook sent up another red flag.

“I said ‘Is this a hoax?’ and I got on the phone and called my aunt and she confirmed it was not her,” Foster said. “She said, ‘No, that’s not me. Somebody’s using my name.’”

But when Foster let the person know she knew they were attempting to scam her, that’s when the scammer responded with threats — a common maneuver, according to Watson.

“If they can’t con it out of you, they’ll try to threaten it out of you,” Watson said.

The threats were serious enough that Foster reached out to authorities.

“There was no way I was giving up any money,” Foster said. “I just wanted to know that I wasn’t in any danger.”

Watson said, like the phone scams in which callers claim their victims have won a lottery, usually overseas, the Facebook profile impersonators are usually not within the U.S., so an actual physical threat in unlikely.

“In the conversation, you can tell that they don’t have command of the English language,” Watson said.

Like the phone and email scammers, it is difficult for law enforcement to track down and prosecute the perpetrators.

“When you’re dealing with folks who are trying to hide behind fake Facebook pages, our avenues for investigation are very limited because Facebook is a company that provides services to people all over the world and they are the ones who have information on the suspects,” Watson explained. “We communicate with Facebook and their law enforcement representatives, but our experience is that the size of the company makes it very difficult to get responses and information in a timely fashion.”

Watson said people should be very careful in online conversations and shouldn’t send money to people through Facebook or because of a Facebook conversation. As for engaging the scammers, he said the quicker you move on, the faster they’ll lose interest.

“Anything that continues the conversation is not going to be beneficial to the victim. The sooner they break off communications, the better off they’ll be” Watson said. “The only reason the scammer is going to continue to talk to you is that they still see the potential to victimize you. If you’re not talking to them, they’ll move on.”

While the incident scared Foster, she urged others to not be afraid to contact law enforcement if they encounter the same situation and threats.