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Scams on Facebook: How to reveal scams and protect yourself

Financial fraud has risen sharply these days, as scammers seek to exploit our increased financial vulnerability. There has been significant increase in phishing messages, false websites, social media scams and more. This article will concentrate on one type of fraud, which is becoming more common nowadays: scams on Facebook.

Main Attraction for Scammers

Every month, Facebook gets more than a billion new members. It utilizes sophisticated algorithms to identify user groups for advertisement purposes based on shared interests or features (such as age or geography).

Because of its high user base, Facebook is perfect for scammers looking to target vast groups of individuals with too-good-to-be-true scamming offers, spamming links, cloning, and many other techniques.

Meanwhile, do you know what happens if you click a spam link on Facebook? It is one of the techniques of Facebook money scams; when you click a scam ad or message, it is more probable that your personal information will be stolen, or you and your contacts will be targeted with the same bogus content again.

Types of Facebook Scams

Cloning Scams

Facebook account cloning is a social engineering technique where scammers utilize your Facebook information to build a fake replica of your profile. Facebook cloning scams may include money scams. However, the vicious Facebook clones don’t just quit stealing money merely. They can:

  • Send malicious messages and links to your friends.
  • Manipulate the emotions of friends and get other sensitive details.
  • Create fictitious websites and direct your friends to them so that scammers can access their credit cards.
  • Share inappropriate material on the site that may damage your reputation.

Their method of cloning Facebook accounts uses all of your publicly available pictures and information to create a duplicate of your current account and then add your contacts to it. Scammers pretend they are you and then begin texting your contacts.

Meanwhile, if you have been a victim of a Facebook account cloning scam, the main stumbling block you face will be regarding how to remove a cloned Facebook account.  Sometimes, Facebook takes quick actions against cloning accounts, and sometimes it takes months. Undeniably, the Facebook community guidelines regarding impersonating other people are stringent. You can report that profile to their support center as “Pretending to be Someone.” They probably reply within one business day.

Giveaway Scams

Giveaway scams operate much in the same manner as live scams, and this is because they attempt to get consumers to win large with little or no effort. The technique typically uses the establishment of a page or account that embodies a particular brand, celebrity, band or anything that would seem appealing to a wishful victim and then creates a competition focused around him.

Romance Scams

It is the most common method of Facebook money scams. Initially, scammers send romantic messages to individuals they don’t know about, frequently claiming that they are divorced, widowed or unhappily married. To get money for flights or visas, they will get into online relationships. Their objective is to build your confidence so that the discussions may continue for weeks before seeking money.

Job Scams

With the launch of the new feature of the Facebook Marketplace for Ecommerce and Job Search Portal, the rise of job scams on Facebook is gaining momentum. Job fraudsters attempt to obtain your personal information or money via misleading or fraudulent job advertisements. You should avoid employment posts that are too good to be true or require you to pay anything in advance.

Charity Scams

Another method facebook scammers love to prey on victims is via crowdfunding, giving or charity schemes. In this instance, they attempt to exploit people’s sensitivity and readiness to assist those in need by establishing false or genuine charities. Sometimes, fraudsters attempt to take advantage of a recent catastrophe, such as natural disasters, accidents or other sad occurrences that might persuade people to contribute.

Scam Advertisements

There is a long Facebook scammer list who are using their vicious brains to scam people through Facebook advertisements. When a user clicks on the ad, it leads them to a fake market by promising products with absurdly high discounts. This typically includes premium goods like sunglasses for Ray-Ban, or the plan may focus on seasonal events such as Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

What steps can I take to protect myself from phishing on Facebook?

Do you know, how to protect yourself from scams? Here are a few preventive measures that may help you avoid falling victim to a Facebook scam. Some valuable methods to protect yourself from scams on Facebook are listed below:

1. Do not accept friend requests from someone you don’t know – social networking platforms are about interacting with others. But there are so many fraudulent profiles on the platform; you should always be cautious of accepting a friend request from someone you don’t know.

2. Keeping operating systems up to date – It is also essential to ensure that your software is updated frequently so that fraudsters cannot access your computers through vulnerabilities in older and obsolete systems.

3. Use advanced privacy settings on Facebook – Check and update your Facebook privacy settings often to limit what others on your page can and cannot view.

4. Use VPN for high profile security against scammers — A VPN hides your online identity. You may utilize it for your business accounts to protect your sensitive information, banking credentials, and customers data. There are many VPN services available to choose from.

5. Never click on links that ask for personal information – Facebook will never ask users to update their personal information by clicking on a link that asks them to do so. These URLs are almost usually designed to steal personal information or for Facebook money scams.

6. Use unique Facebook login credentials – it is always advisable to use a unique username and password so that attackers will not have access to their other online accounts in the sad case of phishing.

7. Install antivirus software — Installing antivirus software helps identify dangers on your computer and blocks access for unauthorized people. Also, avoid visiting sites that Facebook tries to redirect you to.

Summary

While Facebook is running a pretty fast boat to monitor its site’s contents, scams on Facebook are still rising day by day. Scammers look for any flaw in Facebook’s content control to propagate their frauds and defraud as many Facebook users as possible.