Just had a message come through on Messenger…

[Jazzicatz]

Just out for the day and checked my phone and I have a message from a stranger basically saying they think we share the same dad! This person is in their 60s, which would mean it was before my parents were together. They want a dna test to see if my father is also father to them. I haven’t replied yet, I am still in shock. What should I do?

How would a scam work? If you do a DNA test first, then the results are obvious. Not related - no more contact. Related - contact is up to you. They can't FORCE you to hand over money and if they're after sensitive family information (maiden names, middle names etc) then if you do a DNA test straight up that should remove any concern and you can cautiously talk about family pasts.

If you are sure its not the case then why mention it? I am not sure why you think FB would lead to an increase. I am there under my married name so no unknown relatives could find me by my birth name. You have said "she" and the OP says "they" You also assume that "parents" abandoned the child which is another massive reach. Are you by any chance projecting?

no but scammers tell a good sob story. my starting point would NOT be DNA but "how did you get my details" and "what makes you think we could be related?"

@Jazzicatz so what have they explained in terms of the evidence that has led them to identify you? Maybe they contacted a number of "possibles"? I'd want a lot more information from them to explain how they connect to you. Surely they should pay for the test too? Has someone in your family tree submitted their sample/data to a DNA database - if so then I imagine they would also have been contacted - if so - have you thought of contacting them?

I've read of DNA scams previously - inheritance type scams and others:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/comments/1cke61x/2_years_ago_a_stranger_on_fbook_claimed_to_be/

No, this is Mumsnet, no one must ever do the bleedin' obvious 😂

Always jump to conclusions that the person is after your money or your DNA.

I haven't developed the skill of knowing the truth from few written words of a stranger that so many in here have

I agree. If you decide to go ahead, get the DNA test done yourself; in case the other person produces a fake one.

Only in biological terms.

Being proven to be related doesn’t create a family bond.

E.g. if I found out I’d been switched at birth I wouldn’t think of the person who had given birth to me as my mother, my mum would still be my mum because she’s the one who brought me up. No amount of biological connections would change that.

I think that if it’s a parent they at least should respond, but no sibling who never even knew that this was a possibility owes anyone anything, and to say that they do is pretty crap tbh. True OP had no part in this, wasn’t aware of it, the one person who has the potential answers is no longer there, so even if it’s true, that avenue has now closed and the person doesn’t have the right to seek answers from other random members of the family.

The fact they’ve apparently waited for 60 years would make me even more suspicious of their motives.

It's not me is it? I found out the person I thought was my father isn't. It's someone else altogether much to my shock and I have a brother on ancestry.
I only joined the site to research my family tree not expecting to discover this.. I'm in my 60's. The person I was told was my father died before I was born.
I emailed the man who is listed as my brother but never got a reply back.

I’ve been the sender of a message like this. Significant difference being that I had recently used ancestry DNA and I got a match a half sibling. This wasn’t a massive shock to me as I already knew of their existence and their names. I sent a message, luckily they were receptive to it and as expected I was a massive surprise to them.

I was subsequenly put in contact with other family members including my father. He had been super keen to meet which I have so far resisted as I’m not sure I want to open the door that much given that he never wanted a relationship when I was a child.

I wasn’t after anyone’s money, I probably have more that these other family members do. I wasn’t scamming anyone. It was just nice to be able connect with them and share life stories. We’ll probably stay in occasional contact and that’s all I wanted really.

Edit- I actually tried to search online for half siblings years ago. No luck but if I had have found some contact details for someone I strongly suspected was my half brother/sister, I may have sent an email like OP received.

You’d be a doddle to find under birth/marriages/death register. 5 mins tops you could find your maiden name. I search often myself if someone’s maiden name has escaped me or I can’t remember their children’s names in Christmas cards, just to jog my memory. You’re right though I don’t know for certain. I assume it must be an absent father but I did ask if they were adopted. My son has an absent father, although i already have a DNA test for him with CMS and if i required anything id just go through my solicitor, which i do think is the most appropriate route, rather than messaging on Facebook. I highly doubt it would be by a private number that would be a scam.

Be mindful too that there's a lot of scam messages on messenger through Facebook

They only looked her up on Facebook, it's hardly some in-depth search.

TBH I think there’s a difference between contacting someone on the likes of ancestry and sending them random messages on social media.

Presumably if you join ancestry with all your details as wel as your DNA then you do so in the knowledge that you may discover other family members you may not have known about, although admittedly I don’t imagine that many people expect to find out that their parent isn’t who they thought they were.

But if you’re not on ancestry then any contact is based purely around supposition and nobody owes anyone anything on that basis.

I’m not and never will be on ancestry, and over my dead body would I ever upload my DNA anywhere.

And my social media is pretty locked down but I don’t have the same name as my family, they’re not on social media and not really that traceable online so if someone did contact me out of nowhere to tell me that they were my long lost half sibling I could say with some certainty that they were scammers and block accordingly.

Why, though? What do you think the harm is in doing a DNA test?

I stand by the fact that many of these responses are ridiculously paranoid and some are downright nasty.

But then how would you make the link.

There are several people with my name on FB. I’m not friends with either of my parents on there and my friend list is private. So what does the person do, contact all several hundred people who go by that name and ask for a DNA test? What if they all agree? Who pays for all these tests the sender is going to be doing?

I had sort of similar... I don't want to say too much because its outing but feel free to dm me if you want

Yes, there’s definitely some on here that are just picturing grubby poor people on the take. As the person who was the skeleton in the closet, I can safely say that I’m a nice normal financially secure person with a lovely home and family of my own, just some gaps in my family history.

And some are ridiculously naive.

If you think there’s no harm in providing your DNA to god-knows-who, and that includes the likes of ancestry then you need your head read.

It’s interesting that people object to the idea of DNA being taken at birth by the government but they’re actually prepared to pay to give their DNA to a private company where they have literally no idea what is going to happen to it in the future.

One company has already paid out compensation to members over a data breach, 123 and me have gone into administration and advised that they would be selling their data including DNA.

Having your DNA out there is less secure than giving out your credit card number, and most people are careful about doing that.

You don’t have to think that people will do certain things with your DNA such as commit identity fraud or Link you to crime, most people probably wouldn’t, although many might sell it on.

But when considering your safety and security you need to think of what can happen so as to mitigate against it.

But then how would you make the link.

There are several people with my name on FB. I’m not friends with either of my parents on there and my friend list is private. So what does the person do, contact all several hundred people who go by that name and ask for a DNA test? What if they all agree? Who pays for all these tests the sender is going to be doing?

People are often much easier to find on Facebook than they realise.

A friend of mine got a real shock when I showed her how easy it was to track her and the tidbits of information given gave a real clue as to the area she lived in.

Searching a name on Facebook doesn't just give profiles, it can give up posts that name is tagged in (which often throws up relatives), reviews they've left (which can show where someone lives), places they've been tagged in (again can show location) and the likes.

Even as a basic the majority of people have a detail of lives in/went to x school/works or worked for, which even one of narrows down areas and the number of Jim Smith's to message

But not everyone is. And it’s because there are some unscrupulous people out there that people who aren’t are going to find it difficult. But that’s just life I’m afraid.

You can’t blame people for wanting to protect themselves and being careful especially when it comes to random strangers sending them messages out of nowhere asking for a DNA test. You can’t possibly think that everyone should jump at the opportunity without considering the very real fact that not everyone is genuine.

I think the term you’re looking for is realistic.

Whereas you’re clearly a scammer’s dream come true.

I assume you’d also give money to a random taxi driver you met five years ago in Morocco who contacted you out of nowhere to tell you about the hard time he was having with his sick daughter….

Well from the public records you could potentially gather your location, occupation (if you’ve had children from their birth certificate, their names and details). Then you could do a more streamline search. Search the electoral register and so on. Then how many women of the same name, occupation, social economic group by where they live and so on (or indicators of). They could also search your husband’s details for more clarity. If you’re a professional such as a lawyer your details will be there the same if you run a ltd company and son on. If someone was looking for you you’d be able to make an educated guess if addresses, children, marriages and names were all tying up and then write to them to confirm.

Oh I absolutely do realise that which is why my FB is so Locked down. I actually did it because I was being harassed by someone several years ago but now that pretty much makes me untraceable.

And the fact that I have traced other people on there through others’ profiles just makes me more secure that I couldn’t be.

There’s 0 information about me on my public profile. My friend list is private, I’m not tag-able, people could send me messages but then they’d have to be very specific if I was going to take them seriously.

And tbh even if someone was more easily traced, I would expect them to give more detail first before suggesting that we shared a father and requesting a DNA test. There are ways of doing things, and that definitely isn’t one of them.

This happened to a cousin of mine. They both did DNA tests (ancestry) and that confirmed that they were half siblings. We're all in a group chat together, and it's nice. They haven't met (live on different continents now), and neither expects a sibling type relationship, but they both understand more about their parents past which has given them some peace. People just want to understand their heritage. I'd personally do a DNA test to confirm one way or the other before committing to any conversations etc.