Facebook

[doctorhead]

Everyone knows that when you put information out on the internet, it's not no longer private. I just wanted to send a warning to everyone that uses Facebook. Yesterday I was on Facebook and received a chat from a friend. It was from someone that I am "friends" with, but not really friends in real life. Seeing that this person was out of the blue chatting with me, I immediately was suspicious.
Her status was changed to something along the lines of I'm in trouble. I asked her what was up, and she told me that she had been robbed at gun point in London. Someone stole her ID, wallet, money, etc and that she was stuck in the embassy and needed money to get back to the US. Luckily, I check people's updates on my iphone and saw that she had been talking about going to the inauguration for a few days prior to this. No mention of going to London.
When this person said they needed money, I knew it was a scam. I had the AIM for this person and messaged her on there. She responded and tried to login to her Facebook account. The hacker had changed her password so she could no longer log in. I played along with the hacker and told them that I'd wire them money if they gave me their address in London. The idiot gave me their address which I sent to my friend to report to Facebook. After warning my friend, I put a message on her wall saying that her account had been hacked and not to listen to any chats. I was immediately de-friended. When I checked back today, the account has been closed. Luckily, I think we stopped this person before they could scam people out of sending money. I just wanted to warn people to look out for things like this.

 

[JARNJ3]

Thanks. I just joined facebook.

I will be wary.....

And close friend I have would be calling me up for $$$ - not asking me on facebook!

 

[binny]

wow that is scary!

One of the reasons I change my passwords frequently.

I have a friend whose passwords are usually short sentences LOL. Go ahead and try to figure those ones out.

 

[ckay87]

Good reminder, thanks

 

[stashbin]

Ya know, I just joined Facebook about a month ago and already I have had some hacking issues. I received a message from one of my friends that asked me "why are you posting your pictures using _____, you need to click ______ and post your pictures using this. Everybody who's on Facebook knows that!"

Well it seemed fishy to me so I asked her if she sent that to me and she said no. Come to find out, when you clicked on the link it was a nasty virus. Facebook contacted me and made me change my password. It is super scary. I want to be on Facebook so I can look at pictures of my friends from years ago, but I am now weighing the pro's and con's of it.

 

[smacky1]

Fast thinking OP! Thanks for the reminder to be careful though. I love facebook, but it does seem to get hacked quite often.

 

[Aimeedyan]

I haven't had any issues yet, guess I should count myself lucky! Always wise to me smart when responding to things online - even the Dis has had issues with hackers in the past and clicking on the link can really make yourself vulnerable. Sadly, no place is secure online.

 

[bicker]

I am pretty conservative with regard to which applications I grant permissions to, as well. A lot of friends send "glasses of wine" and "snowballs" around, but to participate in those "games" you have to give the owners of those applications access to at least some of your personal information. When I get the authorization page for those things, I just hit cancel.

 

[doctorhead]

here is a link to an article about exactly what happened to me - Link.