Avoid Friend Scams On Facebook

Social networking scams are nothing new.  If you don’t already know by now, you should always be incredibly careful on sites like Facebook and Myspace.  Both offer huge gatherings of identity thieves just looking for easy prey.  If you aren’t careful you could become that prey, and it’s surprisingly easy for them to play upon you.

Facebook scams work so much better than email scams because usually the scammer is posing as your friend.  Because of the way social networking functions, we’re all so willing to accept someone we “know” that scammers get through fairly easily.  One tactic requires an identity thief hacking an account and gaining someone’s password information.  The identity thief then poses as that person, asking for money from everyone on their friends list.  Usually soliciting an emergency situation in which you are the only person they can find to help them.

The problem with this scam, is that if you think logically, is Facebook the place someone would contact you if they needed to ask for money?  Wouldn’t you think a friend would call, or email, or text so that the message made it your way as soon as possible?  Anyone asking for money online, especially on a social networking site, should immediately set off your scam detector.

There are a variety of scams that follow the same archetype, almost all of them end in asking you for money.  Anybody asking for money on a social networking site is usually a scammer.  A real friend in an emergency that needs cash, would find a more reliable means to contact you.  So never send them money, no matter how convincing they may seem.

The same goes for sharing contact information with anybody you don’t absolutely trust.  The internet is a big place, and just like a bustling street corner, you can keep your personal information out where others can see it.