ABC Radio Brisbane breakfast co-host Loretta Ryan warns of fake Facebook profile
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ABC Radio Brisbane breakfast co-host Loretta Ryan is warning people not to trust any Facebook profile claiming to be her after her photos were stolen for a fake account used to scam listeners' personal details. 
Ryan said she felt "sick to her stomach" at the idea that her personal details had potentially been used to scam listeners.
The ABC social media team reported the fake profile to Facebook and it was removed on Monday, but another account using Ryan's photos continued sharing ABC Brisbane content and advertised a fake prize on Tuesday morning.
Ryan thanked ABC Radio Brisbane listeners who alerted her to the fake profile.
"I've also, unfortunately, had messages from people who have clicked on the link, thinking that it was ridgy-didge, and given their details and then had to go to their bank," Ryan said.
Ryan said the incident was "frightening" as the relatively sophisticated scammers shared multiple posts from the ABC Radio Brisbane Facebook page, used photos of herself and her co-host Craig Zonca to add legitimacy to the scam, and thanked people for their support.
"ABC would never ask people for their private bank details or anything like that," Ryan said.
"But the trouble is, people trust you when they see the brand and they see the photos. They click through and think it is you.
"I felt sick to the stomach that people have thought it was me and I was asking for their details to give them money."
David Lacey, the founder and managing director of not-for-profit identity and scam support IDCARE, said his organisation received hourly reports from people scammed on Facebook.
"They're very clever in terms of what they're doing. Obviously, in this case, it's about harvesting credit card details," he said.
Dr Lacey said in the first instance, if people suspected a profile or page was a scam, they could click on three dots in the top-right corner of a page to report the profile to Facebook.
If a person's profile was copied or hacked, Dr Lacey said they could report the issue to Facebook in the first instance, and contact IDCARE for further help.
"The challenge for many people is it's a foreign event, so they're not used to it and the process is not necessarily one where they know immediately what to do," Dr Lacey told ABC Radio Brisbane.
"Facebook has tried to make it easier by having those three dots where you can report a particular page as against their community standards.
"But the silence, or not knowing what's happening next, and knowing someone is impersonating you and there's criminal activity involved — that's quite an anxious time for many people."
Ryan said she urged listeners to only trust messages, posts or comments from verified ABC social media accounts and if unsure to contact the ABC directly.
"Never click on anything, and never give your personal details to anybody," she said.
Facebook's scam page says people should be wary of strangers asking for money, unverified pages or profiles representing public figures, people claiming to be a friend or relative in an emergency, or people directing you to a page or website to claim a prize.
A spokesperson for Meta, which owns Facebook, said scams were not allowed on their platforms.
"It's against our policies to run ads or set up fake accounts that use public figures in order to try to scam people out of money," the spokesperson said.
"We're making significant investments in scaled detection technology to prevent these scams and have more than 40,000 people working on safety and security.
"We recommend people report fake accounts or misleading and scam ads, so we can remove these from our platform."
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