It’s a new year, and scammers are hitting it hard. At least these old dogs don’t have any new tricks. Why? Because we fall for the same old crap over and over again. Don’t let this be you.
It’s easy to think you might know them.
I received a Facebook Messenger request from someone that I thought I knew from a private group that I belong to. It said we had six common friends, so I accepted the Messenger request.
Usually there are clues that something isn’t as it seems.
My very first clue that this was going south was that I could not find a profile for this person. On a phone when you hit the three dots in Messenger, one of the options should be “View Profile.” So I went to my computer to try to find this person. Again, in Messenger on Facebook from your computer, you should be able to click on the person’s name and see their profile. Instead when I click on the link to their name, it pulls up the message in full-screen Messenger.
Clue number two: the English made very little sense.
Clue number three: the person’s job title was Facebook’s Online Coordinator. As opposed to Facebook’s In-Real-Life-Person Coordinator? Online seems a little bit obvious to have for a Facebook job title, don’t you think?
Do your homework.
I decided to play along a little bit just to see what they are after. While carefully answering some of their questions and not giving away any information, I answered with questions like, “What do you need?” and “What do you want?” I Googled “Facebook Online Coordinator.” Like I said, this isn’t new. The first thing that pops up is a report from Scam Trends – from 2012!
Winner, winner, chicken dinner
Turns out I won the Facebook Lottery! “500,000,00 US dollars “
All I have to do is provide my
Full name
Home address
Gmail address
Occupation
Phone number
Country
State
City
Zip code
Everything a little scammer needs to steal your identity.
Don’t be a victim.
People , please don’t fall for this crap. Make sure that your less technologically savvy friends and family are aware that this does happen. (Share this post and make sure they understand how to handle a spammer.)
Get protected.
And finally make sure you have something like ID Shield to protect you and your family’s information online, including social media.
If you’re ever unsure whether someone is spamming you or not, they probably are.
Don’t be afraid to make someone angry by denying messenger requests.
Never give out your info or say yes to any of their requests.
After I told him no, he demanded that I give him the info now. I then reported this to Facebook and blocked him. In reality, you really shouldn’t interact with a scammer. There are ways to get your IP address and through that your physical address. It’s not being paranoid, it’s being safe.