Real Facebook Friends Don’t Ask for Money

Facebook phishing scams have gotten more advanced recently. Our very own Account Manager here at Keystone told me a story this morning. He was on Facebook and one of his friends (a guy he hasn’t spoken to in ten years) started chatting with him. The chat started pretty normal, but then news that the friend had been robbed on vacation while in London surfaced and the friend started asking for money to get home.

This seemingly new Facebook scam did not fool our own Jason Elkins, but it has fooled many others in the past. This scam includes stealing a Facebook user’s name and password, with some basic phishing scam, and then proceeding to ask all his or her friends if they would send money so he or she can return home from a vacation. And with the Facebook Chat feature, it is pretty easy to get in touch with many “victims” quickly. The hackers will even sometimes change contact information of the person’s Facebook they’ve taken over so a phone number or email will actually contact the scammer.

Apparently this scam was very popular back in January and February of this year, so why is it still happening? The first reports of this scam were back in November of 2008! Shouldn’t Facebook have a handle on this by now?

Basically, the moral of the story is: don’t send money to a friend you barely know because they claim to have been robbed in Europe. Why wouldn’t they contact the police or call a family member first? It’s not logical.

If you believe your Facebook account has been hacked or scammed, you can find help here.