I know this is a fairly well-documented scam, but I understand it’s impacted a member of the domain community, so I wanted to share it with you. The premise is that a hacker gains access to a person’s Facebook account and sends instant messages to that person’s friends asking for money.
While the premise behind the scam changes, it’s most often related to being stuck in a situation without money or access to funds. In many cases, the scammer claims that he was robbed at gun point, and all credit cards, cash, and mobile devices were taken. The scammer claims to immediately need cash via Western Union or some other difficult to track money transfer.
One reason I point this out is because many people who are connected on Facebook aren’t actually closely related in real life and may not know the person (and their diction) very well. In addition, they may not know where their “friends” travel and how often, so the scam may not seem unrealistic at first glance.
Keep your passwords secure, make sure they are different for different websites, and if someone reaches out to you, be sure to email or call the person making the request. Chances are good that it’s a scammer whose gained access to someone’s account without that person’s knowledge.
yes, happened to me thru FB Chat. The only problem, the scammer used my friend’s account and my friend is a Police Officer.
Three times I alerted the true owners about their accounts were compromised.
The most important advice I can give because I think +95% of accounts are compromised this way:
It is to turn down the event email notifications.
Because one receive so much that it’s easy to at moment to not care and get caught by a fake link in a phishing email saying you have a friend to accept or someone commented your post, …
Tried it on me just yesterday…. It was the I was robbed story. Told him that is tough luck but unless I know you personally, your out of luck. On top of all of that, someone hacked http://www.genericcctlds.com and deleted everything. Had to reinstall wp, rebuild etc. what a mess.
@ Bruce
How did they gain access?
My guess is a trojan tracking my key strokes. There was a message on facebook with a link to a video. When I went there, it never fired up but since then my laptop had slowed down. I ran spyware and it detected a trojan but one I had not heard of. So I had to change bank account passwords etc.
They first tried to change the password and that is what taunted me to go to the site. I have to talk with host today and see if I can get a list of IP address and times.
I highly recommend RoboForm for all logins. This simple program not only allows you to easily create random passwords for every website, saves time remembering and entering passwords, but also defeats phishing by only entering your passwords on the correct sites.
The facebook itself is a virus, an Open Virus.
Another reason why I am so happy to be using Linux on all my machines.
Of course it is not 100% immune – just 99% 🙂 – to all those annoyances, but, for sure it helps a lot not using Windows and I.E.
Common sense is the other must have ingredient, most people do not really think or even know, what they do on line; let alone what their PC’s are doing without their authorization, or even their knowledge.
2 cents.
Kind regards from Mexico City.