[Max Goodman]

I Just got a message from notification+kqsqrean@facebookmail.com that a poet friend who died in 2013 "wants to be friends on Facebook."

[Mary Meriam]

I got the same invitation, Max. And deleted it.

[Max Goodman]

I guess I've been naive, but I've assumed that when FB told me acquaintances wanted to connect with me, this was true. I'm angry to learn that when I've written to people from my past who I thought had reached out to me, they might have wondered why the hell I was writing to them.

FB doing this seems to me so dishonest and unethical that I'm surprised it's allowed (further evidence, I suppose, of my naivete).

[Ann Drysdale]

I don't think it's Facebook per se that does this. Scammers adopt the identities of folk and fish for Friendships thus disguised. I have once or twice received requests from people with whom I am already "Friends" and people now and then discover that their name - and even picture - has been used in this way, and post warnings to that effect.

I am not sure what the scammers stand to gain. Report the buggers and the accounts will be closed.

[Max Goodman]

Thank you, Ann. You may be right, though after trying to report this, I'm not certain.

The FB help center at https://www.facebook.com/help/263149623790594 includes "How do I report a fake account that's pretending to be someone I know?"

First step, visit the fake account. I've deleted the message I got. The only account I find in my dead friend's name is the one she used when alive. I'm already "friends" with that account, and I don't see post-death activity other than people remembering her, so if someone has hacked the account, I'm not savvy enough to find evidence. Apparently the message came from a new account, which I can't find.

Might not matter:

"Please keep in mind that we can only act on reports from the person who's being impersonated."

[Ed Shacklee]

A modern riff on "Dead Souls," it seems. What a sick practice.