Facebook Scammer Account

[deanwebb]

I got friended by someone who claimed to be a fan of the music I play on my radio shows. I figured, sure, I'll roll the dice and accept the friend request - the personal account didn't have a lot of sketchy pictures and creepy-looking "friends", typical hallmarks of pr0n accounts.

It's now 3 weeks later and I'm getting probed for personal details and asked for pics of myself. Uhhh... my pics are visible in my account and my personal details aren't.  Nice long game, though. I'm thinking it is a person and not a chatbot - so if it is a chatbot, it's doing a hell of a job on the Turing tests.

So, yeah, don't hand out your deets online and give a cold shoulder to those who ask for them. Don't apologize - decent people understand and scammers will get outraged to try and pressure you into being "nice" so they can get the info and rip you off or worse.

[Dieselboy]

It's tough if you have an online presence where you welcome strangers.

I see scam accounts on facebook all of the time. But the reporting system is broken. You're not able to provide context for the report and so 99% of my reports get a response that it doesnt go against facebooks standards and they will not remove the account.

I signed up to telegram and I get contacted there almost daily. I just try to waste their time. But they have a system:
1. 1st contact uses a burner account (because they get reported and blocked)
2. 1st contact aims to get you interested and they inform you that their colleague will contact you next
3. 2nd contact does not use a burner account and aims to get you to sign up on their website for any number of hundreds of dollars payment per day


Unless you're actively reaching out to strangers then it's best to bin the message or even just plain block them which is what I usually do. "New message request" -> block!

I rarely accept friend requests on facebook, usually I have met them in person first. I'd rather have no friends and money in the bank Some of these scammers are not just individuals with a laptop. They can be proficient and well-established scamming businesses that already have some of your secure info. You might give them something seemingly worthless by itself but it could be the remaining piece in their puzzle to execute some scam against you.

[deanwebb]

Since I do radio shows, I keep an open door for most friends on FB, so I have to stay aware.

Tonight, I got hit with a pitch to invest in crypto. Bingo!

Good thing for me, I don't discuss investments online with strangers!

[Otanx]

I don't do social media. I have a LinkedIn which I keep updated, but don't use very often. My wife on the other hand is really involved in it. She acts as the social media manager for two or three non profits she is involved with as well as her own. She is constantly having to deal with scams, bots, and impersonation. Seeing her have to deal with all that is enough for me to just stay away. Also being in cyber security makes me paranoid in sharing anything anywhere.

-Otanx

[deanwebb]

Yeah, it's a nightmare, how scammy it is.