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YouTubeWoman Loses $4K to Scammer Posing as Friend on Facebook
September 8th, 2009 • Identity, Legal Issues, Social Networks, Uncategorized
Jayne Scherrman, of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, was the unfortunate victim of a scam that turned her compassion and trust into a $4,000 profit, the AP reports. A still unknown crook hacked the Facebook account of Jayne’s friend Grace Parry and began to send Jayne messages, purporting to be Grace and claiming that she and her husband had been detained in London and were in need of money.Jayne figured if the couple could reach her only by Facebook, then they were in dire straits, indeed, and quickly wired $600 as per the scammer’s instructions. As is common in these kinds of schemes, subsequent messages were sent requesting additional funds. In this case, the huckster blamed the exchange rate when explaining the discrepancy between the funds needed and the amount initially requested.
All in all, Jayne eventually sent $4,000 via Western Union to the impostor before realizing that she had fallen victim to a scam. On August 26th, she alerted the authorities.
This tactic has been used before, but there ways to avoid a snakey scammers:
- First and foremost, never wire any money without speaking directly (on the phone, not via e-mail or Facebook) to any friend who requests your help financially.
- If you believe there is a plausible reason this friend cannot reach you by phone, don’t be afraid to ask them to confirm their identity. Ask questions that only they would be able to answer.
- Don’t ask about birthdays or hometowns, facts that could be readily ascertainable online, but instead about where the two of you first met, first boyfriends, or high school mascots.
- If you know or suspect a friend’s account has been hacked, try to alert that person directly. Then, warn all of your mutual friends, and finally contact the site’s administrators regarding your suspicions. Both your friend and shared pals will be thankful.
Follow these basic guidelines, resist your immediate urge to blindly offer help, and you’ll avoid falling victim to the widespread 419 scams that have taken a more personal twist when crooks ditched their Nigerian princess roots. [From: AP/Yahoo! News]
2 Responses (Add Your Comment)
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Steve Dodd September 8, 2009at 10:52 am
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Lynn Eastep September 10, 2009at 9:41 pm
Thanks, Steve! I absolutely agree that education is important.
While I agree that there's an element of caveat emptor when dealing with unknown individuals online, not all Internet scams are as obvious as individuals representing themselves as Nigerian or foreign government officials asking for your help in placing large sums of money in overseas bank accounts.
The most common form of online fraud is actually committed through online auction sites. According to the U.S. National White Collar Crime Center, Internet auction fraud was by far the most reported offense, comprising 44.9% of referred complaints. Non-delivered merchandise and/or payment accounted for 19.0% of complaints. Check fraud made up 4.9% of complaints. Credit/debit card fraud, computer fraud, confidence fraud, and financial institutions fraud round out the top seven categories of complaints referred to law enforcement during the year.
Hopefully, safeguards will be put in place to protect consumers.
Lynne, this is a great warning! Some would say, how dumb could this person be to fall for this scam. But, this is exactly the kind of thing the Cdn Privacy Commish was focused on correcting with Facebook and other Social Networks. Although the onus is on the user to "beware", the Social Network providers need to step up their attention to this rapidly escalating problem. If they don't, users will eventually stop using their services.
Sometimes, we just need to be protected from ourselves! As an example, is Facebook trying to determine how this user account was hacked? If not, why not?
Thanks for reporting this so that people can educate themselves on some of these perils.