Facebook scammers impersonate your friends
October 13, 2009 by Sam NarisiPosted in: In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Regulations & Compliance
There’s a new Facebook scam that everyone needs to watch out for. It involves cyber-criminals impersonating victims’ online friends.
Here’s how it works: Hackers break into a Facebook account, change the password and send messages to the user’s “friends” announcing that the account holder is stranded in London.
The message requests funds be wired to the stranded friend via Western Union. Would you respond to a request for money sent by someone in an emergency who chose Facebook of all methods to contact you? Apparently, plenty of people would.
For example, a Missouri woman was tricked into wiring about $4,000 to someone in England after receiving a help messages from a friend on Facebook.
Jayne Scherrman of Cape Girardeau wired the money through Western Union after receiving what she believed were several requests for help from her friend, police said.
Scherrman’s case isn’t an isolated one. Facebook has received reports of similar scams and says it’s working with law enforcement to try and track down the culprits. The site’s administrators claim they have systems to detect suspicious behavior tied to compromised accounts.
The best bet for prevention is to change passwords frequently and let the site owners know immediately if access is blocked.
DocuCrunch.com delivers the latest IT and Imaging news once a week to the inboxes of over 200,000 IT and Imaging professionals.
Click here to sign up and start your FREE subscription to DocuCrunch!
Tags: Facebook, scam, Western Union, wire transfer
Loading ...
November 12th, 2009 at 12:24 am
I must say, I could not agree with you in 100%, but it