You probably have mutual friends with this Indian woman on Facebook. Here's why that's so creepy

Do you know Madhu Shah?

If you don’t, then one of your friends almost certainly does. But you’d better hope they don’t.

The name is used on hundreds of Facebook accounts that don’t appear to be linked to any one particular person – and might be involved in a bizarre, creepy Facebook scam.

Over the last week a number of warnings have gone out to people on Facebook, mostly on India but also elsewhere, telling them not to add the strange account.

All of them go by the name Madhu Shah and include the very same picture of a woman:

The accounts are so widespread and popular that if you aren’t friends with one then somebody else almost certainly will be. You can find out by putting the name into your search bar – where you’ll probably see more than one person with the name.

Most people sharing the warning are calling it a scam. But it might even be creepier than that – nobody knows why the account is adding people and how it got to have so many friends.

The warnings tell people to search the list for the person, and find people who have mutual friends with the account.

They are then advised to report the account as fake, block the accounts, and tell anyone who’s friends with it to do the same.

It isn’t clear that doing so will keep people safe – or that there’s really anything to be kept safe from. But the sheer number of the accounts and their unexplained nature is more than a little creepy, and so it probably is best to steer clear.

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