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Question from [name withheld by request]: After reading your Blog about Facebook and all the scams and hackers you make me want to NOT like anything.
How do I know now what is to be trusted and what is a hack, scam, virus, computer killer, bank account wiper outer…
Heck dude you got me paranoid just even being on the danged computer now…thank you, but not really!!!
Why should I trust YOU? [Read more…]
There’s an old scam that keeps popping up from time to time, and I’m hearing lots of reports that it’s spreading like wildfire at the moment.
A while back I wrote a post explaining that neither Microsoft nor Apple will call you to let you know that your machine has a virus.
And they won’t, so if you get a call like that from out of the blue you should know right off the bat that the call is a scam. Just hang up on them.
But now there’s a quickly spreading variation of that scam that’s costing a lot of folks a lot of money and causing tons of grief to boot.
If you’ve been using Facebook for more than five minutes you’re probably well aware that hackers and scammers love targeting Facebook users with all kinds of fraudulent activities.
I’m sure you’ve seen an occasional “Yikes – I’ve been hacked!” post pop up in your newsfeed. In fact, you probably see them on a regular basis.
The thing is, many of the folks who believe their Facebook account has been “hacked” weren’t really hacked at all. Their accounts have actually been “cloned” – and the difference is extremely important.
Rick’s Tech Tips Newsletter
As you probably already know, scams and hoaxes are everywhere these days, and some of them are quite believable and compelling.
It’s very easy to fall for some of these scams because they mimic actions that are taken by legitimate programs and online services.
One of the most dangerous scams that’s making the rounds right now is the insidious “Your computer has a virus!” scam. There are several variations of this scam, but they typically work something like this… [Read more…]
It seems that the scammers and spammers rarely take a break from their Facebook activities, and right now they seem to be working overtime.
Every now and then a slightly new variation of the old “Facebook Privacy” hoax pops up, prompting millions of Facebook users to fall for the hoax and share it with their friends.
The latest incarnation of this hoax is actually a retread of an old one that makes the rounds several times a year. It reads something like this: [Read more…]