Scam Via Facebook Chat
Posted on January 30th, 2009 in Facebook Chat, Scammers | No Comments »
Be wary, more scams are appeared on Facebook. The channel scammers used on Facebook might be different this time, no longer the Wall posts or messages that conned users to check out links that lead to download adware, and something about virus, but via chat.
Founder and President/CEO of SnapStream reported that in his blog, and even he published the transcript that a scammer tried to scam him, where the scammer seemed to be hacked into one of his friends’ Facebook account, and initiated a chat conversation with an attempt to beg for money. The channel for scam is different this time, but the story is the usual one, your Facebook friend is stranded in foreign land, desperately need money so that can get a ticket fly home back. While the fact scammers used chat to scam Facebook users might indicated that more and more Facebook users are actively using chat, and the user base is large enough to be a viable target for scam.
As Facebook users, perhaps what we can do is to ask questions intelligently in this type of situation, such as questions that involved information that you and the person behind the profile would know. And also, if the Facebook friends you made is really your friends you know in real life. When you received your friend’s help via chat for money, you can give the person a phone call, that’s what real friends do and clear your doubts as well. In short, sometimes the communication in the old way, i.e. phone call can actually prolong the friendship and eventually helps to stop Facebook scam.
