09/13/2023
Eyes open, mind sharp and always be guarded with regards to DM's, IM's, emails and notifications... It's just TOO easy these days to get scammed/defrauded.
SCAM ALERT!! 💥 Friends, there's a significant increase in scams doing the rounds on Facebook lately. 🚫 BE VERY, VERY CAREFUL of clicking on *any* links in posts or DMs or comments. 🚫 It's all too easy to get duped and you do NOT want to get hacked and lose access to your profile or business Page, or have your credit card used to rack up sizable ad spend, or fall for any kind of awful scam!! 😖
The scams include:
► Fake Pages or personal profiles sending DMs to you claiming to have purchased something from you and complaining about customer service, or wanting a refund or something like that.
► DMs asking to check out one of your products and the message includes a RAR or ZIP file encouraging you to click / download.
► DMs alerting you about a password change to your company email.
► Fake Pages tagging your Page, or sharing your posts, claiming that you've violated Meta's terms and threatening to shut down / deactivate your Page.
► And a whole myriad of other scam / phishing variations.
📢 EVERY single weird looking direct message, post on your wall, tag from a fake page, even a share from a fake page is ALL a big fat scam.
NONE of it is legit.
Not one.
Ever.
So there's no need to have any doubt as to whether something is legit or not.
It's not.
Facebook / Meta definitely does not alert you via tagged posts or shares. And only very, very rarely would you ever receive a DM directly from FB/Meta but not about violations... The scammers use bots to set up fake Pages that *look* like they might be legit. Often if you look closely, you'll see that the Meta logo is upside down! 😮
SIGNS TO SPOT SCAMS:
1️⃣ The post / comments / DM (or email) includes a weird looking URL that has *nothing* to do with Facebook or Meta. (But, be careful, because the scammers are good at creating URLs that *might* look legit).
2️⃣ Typos, grammatical errors.
3️⃣ Use of Meta's logo.
4️⃣ Long page names that include some kind of Page violation warning, or similar. Or, the Page name might even be short like 'Community Standards.'
5️⃣ And a whole host of other signs - feel free to share more that you've come across.
👉🏻 Along with avoiding clicking any links yourself, do *not* copy the DM or post, and share it in any groups or elsewhere with the actual live link. This perpetuates the scam and leaves others at risk if they were to click the phishing links. 🚫🔗
STEPS TO TAKE IF YOU SUSPECT A SCAM:
✔︎ Ignore / delete.
✔︎ *Never* click on suspicious links.
✔︎ Report the account/Page.
✔︎ Ban / block the profile or Page.
Facebook is absolutely rampant with these awful scams, with bad actors and bots trying to dupe us into clicking on their crazy schemes, hoping they'll gain access to our ad account, page, followers, credit cards, even. 😳
The scammers seem to get more and more clever, trying out all manner of schemes.
It's so unfortunate that Facebook cannot do more to proactively prevent these horrid scenarios. 🤦🏼♀️
🔐 Meanwhile, please ensure that your accounts are all safe and locked down by enabling two-factor authentication via an authenticator app. As well as reviewing apps that have access to your account. There's much you can do to proactively create a safety net around your online accounts. Certainly, it's a solid best practice to avoid clicking anything remotely suspicious in DMs or posts (or emails). I'll share my extensive article with 12 Steps To Secure Your Facebook Account in the comments. 🔐
Got any questions? Just let me know.
