So much of life exists online that it’s easy to forget some people chose not to exist there at all. Sandra Bullock is one such person. With no forms of social media herself, she was particularly troubled to find out that a series of scammers have been pretending to be her and her family members using fake accounts.

The Miss Congeniality star urged fans to be aware that ‘any accounts pretending to be me or anyone associated with me are fake accounts and have been created for financial gain or to exploit people around me’. She added, ‘I do not participate in any form of social media.’

‘My family’s safety, as well as the innocent people being taken advantage of, is my deep concern,’ she said in a statement to People. ‘There will be a time when I will comment more, but for now our focus is helping law enforcement handle this matter.’

Bullock’s statement came shortly after her sister Gesine made a plea on Instagram for Meta to take stronger action against imposter accounts. ‘They are all still up!’ she wrote, sharing a screenshot of the multiple Facebook accounts using her name and image. ‘I spend multiple times a day [sic] reporting fakes, dealing with weird and scary emails to my BUSINESS and HOME from men who believe that, through one of these many fake “mes” they have a relationship with my sister through private messages and off app sites.’ In some instances, she says, people have been handing over ‘thousands of dollars’ to accounts pretending to be her asking for help for Bullock.

‘I’m a grown ass middle aged woman with a life and I don’t troll around at 54 DMing people,’ she wrote. ‘These crime rings and scams are well known by the company [Meta} and the world, but the fact that I’m put in danger, as is my livelihood, doesn’t mean a damn thing.’

Gesine pointed to a recent viral case in France where a woman was scammed out of her life savings by a catfish pretending to be Brad Pitt. The scammers first reached out pretending to be Pitt’s mother looking for someone to help her son. ‘At first I said to myself that it was fake, that it’s ridiculous,’ the woman later told TFI, ‘but I’m not used to social media, and I didn’t really understand what was happening to me.’ She then began conversing with a fake Pitt account and was asked to send money to help pay for his kidney cancer treatment. All the while being poorly photoshopped, and now viral, images of ‘Pitt’ smiling in a hospital bed. Having just made €798,000 from her divorce settlement, the woman lost almost all of her money to the scam.

Aware of how common these cases can be, Gesine says the only reason she is still on social media is ‘to monitor [her situation] for my own knowledge so I am aware of the danger coming at me’. She also admitted she has had to involve local law enforcement.

Despite claiming to have a stringent anti-scammer policy, there are clearly myriad scammers posing as high-profile celebrities who are able to thrive on Meta’s platforms. ‘We know the impact that scams can have on people around the world as scammers target them across the internet,’ the company’s website reads. ‘To help protect our users, we invest in our products and support systems to keep the scammers out.’

Evidently, those products and systems are failing. It’s not the first time the platform has come under criticism for not effectively combating scammers either. Fintech company Revolut has called for Meta to commit to the reimbursement of fraud victims, arguing that its data sharing initiative with UK banks and financial institutions falls woefully short of what’s required to tackle fraud on a global scale.

In October, a report from Revolut revealed that Meta platforms remain the biggest source of all scams (62%), with Facebook the most common source. As Meta continuously fails to combat these crimes and allows misinformation to flourish – recently announcing the removal of third-party fact checkers – scammers are finding new ways to target their victims. Not only are there more people on these platforms than ever before, many of whom are not well versed in spotting fake accounts, but the rise of artificial intelligence means catfishing has never been so advanced.

While most of us hope we wouldn’t fall prey to these schemes, it’s impossible to be certain. Bullock is right to urge people to block any suspicious accounts at first glance – especially ones pretending to be A-list celebrities asking for cash.