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Facebook is one of the most visited websites on the Internet, and with over two billion registered users it’s a virtual gold mine for scam artists out to make an easy buck.
There are countless scams being perpetrated on Facebook at all times, but every now and then a particularly insidious one pops up.
The purpose of this post is to warn you about a scam that has cleaned out the bank accounts of at least three of my own Facebook friends.
Did you pay attention to the news during the 2016 election cycle?
If so, you probably remember that several third-party groups mined Facebook user data for use in political campaigns.
Well guess what? You might well have given those groups permission to mine your data without even realizing it.
What’s more, you might still be doing it.
Now that folks are starting to travel for summer vacations, here’s a little reminder…
If you’ve been on Facebook for more than five minutes, you’ve no doubt seen lots of status updates similar to this:
“We just arrived at the airport. So glad our trip to Jamaica is finally underway! See ya’ll in 10 days!”
Most people would read this status update and think nothing of it, but a thief could read it and immediately start making plans to pay your home a little visit sometime during the next nine days. [Read more…]
Question from Laurie: My son had been begging me for a new iPhone for a while so I finally gave in and got him one for his birthday.
My own phone was starting to have battery issues so I decided to take over my son’s old iPhone after he received the new one.
The problem my son’s name still shows up when I log into certain apps on his hand-me-down iPhone.
How do I change the name of this phone from my son’s name to mine? [Read more…]
As you probably know, some scams seem to come and go, often disappearing completely before they come back some time later with a vengeance.
One such recurring scam is making the rounds again, and it’s pretty dangerous.
This is a Facebook-related scam, but it isn’t actually perpetrated on Facebook. Instead, the scammers send a fraudulent message directly to your phone via text message or email.
The text of the fraudulent messages vary a bit, but they usually read something like this: [Read more…]