Weird Facebook friend request

[CallMeAChopper]

DH recently got a friend request from someone he knows through work - don’t want to be too specific but think of her as a client of his. He told me about it and accepted the friend request. No issues there. She does appear to interact much with anything he posts.
Now the weird bit … this weekend she sent me a friend request along with a message saying “hi”. I’ve never met her or even spoken to her before.

It seems weird!? I showed DH and he looked concerned and asked if I’m going to reply. I said “no” so he said “don’t blame you, can’t understand why she’s done that”.

Am I over reacting?

If she's not really on there much she might have been hacked. Why doesn't he send her a message to say that he's concerned she's been hacked so he's going to block her and then just block her.

I don't agree with hacking either - yes, if you were already friends, that has happened to me. But a hacker isn't going to go to the effort of looking you up - they only friend people on the existing friend's list.

I'd be intrigued, might not accept her request but I'd respond to her hi message.

@AdelindSchade

It's possible to breach work policies or profesdional standards by this sort of thing which can end up having consequences. Or worse case scenario allegations made etc. He wants to get this sorted asap and unfriend/block.

Most professional and legal standards would have been breached if a HCP discussed and identified a patient with someone else, even their spouse.

Further delving and probing by the spouse could be a Pandora’s box for the OPs husband.

If she's a patient, he's crossed a line accepting her.
If she's a client, but not a business one it makes him sound like a male escort - although I'm pretty confident that's not the case.

His reaction makes me suspicious.

Mega creepy, I would block from both your accounts

Respond…

I think likely it's a hacked/spoofed account.
After the outage last week, DH had someone this weekend trying to trigger change of contact email and password for FB. (He only has it for work clients!)

I don't agree with hacking either - yes, if you were already friends, that has happened to me. But a hacker isn't going to go to the effort of looking you up - they only friend people on the existing friend's list.
They aren't sitting there in their Grandad's shed pressing a button to friend request individuals. They create programs to request everyone in someone's list automatically.

So client lady gets hacked.
Her list is used.
Boyfriend is on client lady's friends list already.
So automatic hacking programme friend requests everyone on his list.
OP gets request.

If she accepts (and it is hacking) then her list will be used.

Hackers target thousands of people and they only need one to respond to whatever it is they are trying to pull off.

I got a request like this from a dead family member -it was definitely their account but we'd never got around to becoming FB friends when they were alive. I was friends with a couple of other mutual family members though so it looks like their account got spoofed and was going through adding all the friends it could to build up the profile. In any case it was upsetting and the reason I finally deleted FB full stop.

I don't think this is actually from the woman and you can safely block it without hurting any feelings.

I think your dh may have breached ethical guidelines in accepting the request.
I'd say you should not respond to any communication from her.
Your husband should delete her and if she questions it explain that he has just undertaken some new training on social media which recommends not having 'clients' on FB etc. So he has deleted all such contacts, that way she cannot take it personally.

@girlmom21

If she's a patient, he's crossed a line accepting her. If she's a client, but not a business one it makes him sound like a male escort - although I'm pretty confident that's not the case.

His reaction makes me suspicious.

He could be a lawyer, accountant, personal trainer, hairdresser all those professions have clients... as well as male escorts

@GalaPie

I think your dh may have breached ethical guidelines in accepting the request. I'd say you should not respond to any communication from her. Your husband should delete her and if she questions it explain that he has just undertaken some new training on social media which recommends not having 'clients' on FB etc. So he has deleted all such contacts, that way she cannot take it personally.

Agreed

Frequently happens. I often receive friend requests from people who are on my friends' lists, even when I don't know them from Adam.

Unless I do know them, I've never accepted these. Quite easy to ignore: why wold you hurt someone's feelings when they don't know you?

Simply ignore the request. When they start sending more is when it's time to block (I've only had to do this once).

He could be a lawyer, accountant, personal trainer, hairdresser all those professions have clients... as well as male escorts

^ wouldn't these count as business clients?

I would be concerned that she was stalking your DH. If he doesn’t post on FB she will be hoping that you are more active and she can see what he is doing via your account.
My DH has a stalker, an old ex that he friended over lockdown. It all got a bit too flirty and since DH and I don’t do FB with each other she assumed he was single. When I messaged her to let her know he was still very married she has gone stealth stalker. She has started to stalk in real life, visiting our local pub and other places locally then posting photos on her thread. Initially DH had blocked her but after the landlord started taking the mick out of him about his secret admirer he unblocked her.
DH doesn’t post on fb apart from sending birthday wishes, he’s a very private person so his page is pretty sparse but he is a member of some specific music groups so he can listen to rare tracks.
We are now collecting evidence so if she starts causing problems we can go to the police.
DHs stalker has no connection to the area we live. So it’s all a bit worrying. Like most stalkers nobody would believe us if we accused her. She has been very clever. However she audio messaged DH the other day, I assume it was in error/accident and immediately came up with a cover story she posted on her fb feed.

If she's a client, patient, service user, student or anything else that is not on an equal level with him then he needs to unfriend her. Especially if he is in a role that requires him to be registered. It is very inappropriate.

@Chachachawoo most of them would be business clients

Is she doing any kind of MLM/selling? I usually find they are the ones to add everyone and start ‘Hi how are you!?’ conversations with people they don’t know

@IToldYouIWasFreaky

She was probably having a nosey at your profile and sent you a friend request by accident. I've done that a fair few times!

I’ve sent accidental friend requests, usually when they appear in the “people you may know” list. Bit embarrassing really, seems a bit rude to message them and effectively say “sorry, don’t really want to be friends with you”.

I have been friended by people I’ve never met but don’t accept unless I know who they are. Mine are childhood friends of my DH.

@FlorenceWintle

Friends on Facebook, colleagues and work contacts on LinkedIn. Stick to that rigidly, no exceptions.

This!! Don't mix business and pleasure. I'd suggest your DH changes his settings so she can't see any of his FB activity although the better move would have been to just ignore her invite. When asked about it "oh I don't really use FB".

Think you both just need to block her.

I'd reply to see what she's up to. Might be just an attempt to gain more followers.

sometimes if my mouse goes over someones name on facebook, its tried to send that person a FR by accident and ive had to quickly unrequest them when i realise, but I dont know if it was just a bug and been sorted because it happened quite a few times a while back.

Or maybe she is the sort of person who adds lots of people and collects friends and friends of friends.

I dont think its that weird tbh. I get friend requests from all sorts, and you can decline it if youre not interested

I have had this. Clients of DHs who he does not socialise with and who I will likely never meet. They see me tagged in photographs of our children and have added me. Ive never accepted and assumed they were just click-happy and like to make friends.

I have several MILs of my friends who Ive met once for 5 minutes at a babyshower/hen do/wedding and theyve added me. and they regularly "like" or comment on all my photos. I think theyre just lonely.

@Branleuse

sometimes if my mouse goes over someones name on facebook, its tried to send that person a FR by accident and ive had to quickly unrequest them when i realise, but I dont know if it was just a bug and been sorted because it happened quite a few times a while back.

Or maybe she is the sort of person who adds lots of people and collects friends and friends of friends.

I dont think its that weird tbh. I get friend requests from all sorts, and you can decline it if youre not interested

Not sure anyone can accidentally hover over someone's name on social media and send them a message that says "hi"