SCAM ALERT: Village of Edwardsburg Victim of Fake Facebook Page
When it comes to finding out information about your community, one of the best and most efficent places to find details is on Facebook. After all, one of the mission statements for Meta is "to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.", and they generally do a fantastic job of getting us all together in once place digitally.
If you're on the platform, there's a high likelihood that you follow the page of your local community so you're able to keep up with what is happening in your neighborhood. But, have you ever considered that you could be following a page that isn't real?
That's what happened to the citizens of Edwardsburg. Recently, an imposter Facebook page has appeared and has been causing a little chaos for the small southwestern Michigan village.
While it may seem harmless, whoever is behind this Facebook page has been causing a few headaches with their jokes. Some of the posts are obviously fake and kind of funny like this fake #ShowUsYourHole pothole campaign.
While another takes a little closer look at the photo to realize it's not a real warning about Amazon packages being dropped off at city hall for pickup (NSFW image)
But some posts take the page from satire to problematic, such as this one that tells residents to 'disregard their bill' for seemingly no real reason.
Obviously, anyone who skips paying their bill because of this post will not only see late fees but also have a few problems of their own when their service gets interrupted all due to some prankster with too much free time on Facebook.
READ MORE: Grandville's Official Facebook Page Got Hacked
It isn't hard to see this page is a fake if you look closely enough. Just comparing the fake page (left) to the real page (right) you can see that they've slightly changed the details to ensure people "know" that they're just a prankster.
The village is aware of the page and is warning residents not to follow it / take it seriously. They've already reported it to Facebook to have it removed, but it seems to be taking some time. Meanwhile, as of today, the page is still posting nonsense news that people are falling for.
So if you are looking to follow the Village of Edwardsburg, this is their official page. And as a friendly reminder- make sure you're looking at the real deal before you believe what you read on social media.
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Gallery Credit: Scott Clow