Facebook Scams

The group of possible victims continues to produce as more people create accounts on Facebook. With further 500 million dynamic users it must come as no surprise that Facebook is measured to be a matured playground for phishing scams, malicious spam and malware to penetrate. For those who work and play an integral role in the online community, spam is obvious but it is an annoyance and probable threat to your privacy and computer systems. We see that we receive bogus advertisements and phishing scams in emails, and these kinds of spam also build their way through Facebook. There are many Government and other anti-spam agencies who are trying to eradicate scam activities from the society.

How to Protect Our Facebook Account from Spam and Scams

On Face book, if you do not directly be familiar with these bogus inbox and Wall posts you might involuntarily open your friends to the scam without knowing it. Similar to email spam, one way to stop Facebook spam from distribution is to be trained about malware and phishing messages. Know how to mark them and also make known yourself with how these Facebook spam messages work.

Facebook Wall Spam

One of the frequent types of Facebook spam is a Wall post that encourages you to establish a Facebook request. The application will need that you to be in agreement that the application can post to Walls and your Facebook friend's pages. When you permit this approval, the spam message is straight away sent to your friend's Walls. If a friend sees the message and performs the action, he or she will then see the similar spam on their Wall and the sequence continues. This is how the spam messages can shift so rapidly through Facebook.

Unfortunately, a lot of messages are intended to trick Facebook users into cutting and pasting cruel code into the address bar in the Web browser or by clicking an embedded link in the messages so as to takes you off Facebook (normally through a URL shorter link) where you might potentially turn into victim to malicious malware and phishing scams. Facebook does have a number of safety controls in place and the system is capable of flagging numerous of these types of messages before they become unchecked on Facebook. In a few instances you may be asked to authenticate a "Like" or you may see a caution that a link you are demanding to visit has been classified as potentially violent by Facebook.

7 Tips to Avoid Facebook Wall Scam

Being conscious is the only way we can avoid these messages from spreading. Examine what to look for to find out if a Wall post or inbox message is a rightful message from a friend or spam. These are the following tips will help you to study the difference between spam and legit messages.

1. Appear at the message. Is it of the similar value as other messages this friend would normally post? For example, if our friend is a specialized associate and you see a message like "Oh My God! Glance at this video" on our Wall, probably are the message was not purposely sent by your friend. If the message seems out of quality for your friend who posted it, then don't click the link.
2. Look in your Facebook information feed. Are you rapidly considering this message appearing numerous times? If so, probability it is a scam that is being sent via computerized means.
3. Pay notice to the permission requests for any applications you establish. For example, to view a video a Facebook application should not require accessing all of your information or requiring authorization to post to your Wall and your friend's wall. Always examine those applications that request permission to post on your Facebook Wall and your friend's Wall.
4. Be cautious when a message on your Wall contains short links from friends who don't regularly post links on your Wall. This also is an additional form of the message being "out of personality" for your Facebook friend.
5. Always authenticate URLs before clicking. In video spam messages, for example, the message indicates you will transfer to YouTube to observe the video. If you shift the mouse cursor over the link (but do not click it) look at the particulars of the link in the footer of your browser. This will show you a URL that may appear similar to YouTube but is not the actual YoueTube.com Web address.
6. If you click the link and are greeted by an unknown screen and a page you were not expected, do not click any associative links or icons on that corresponding page.
7. The golden rule: If the message seems mistrustful delete it from your Facebook Wall. As you shift your mouse cursor to the top right area of the Wall post an X will become visible. Highlight the X and you will see a choice to remove the post.

Most Common types of Facebook Scams

• Find Out Who Has Been Looking at your Profile Scam!
• Free Items and Gift Cards Scam!
• Unique and new Facebook features scam!
• Free iPads and iPhones Scam!
• Earn Credits for Games Scam!
• Private Messages for Help and money scam!
• Sensational headlines and fake celebrity stories Scam!
• Fake Privacy settings scam!

1) Find Out Who Has Been Looking at your Profile Scam!

There are many pages that claim to show you who has been viewing your profile repeatedly or who have blocked you from their list. Facebook users get carried away in the anticipation to view the names of the people viewing their profiles. But in reality facebook does not allow any such access to developers. These are just tactics adopted by scammers to lure users to click on their directed links.

2) Free Items and Gift Cards Scam!

Close down all communication with the scam artist and allow your legal representative to examine your claims and pursue damages. Seek the counsel of the local authorities and report to them immediately if you deem you are the victim of application scams.

3) Unique and new Facebook Features Scam!

Scammers direct you to their phishing pages by claiming to change the facebook 's user experience or by letting you install a new feature such as the dislike button and so on. The ultimate aim of the scammers is to attract more visitors to their page and get their information.

4) Free iPads and iPhones Scam!

There is a huge rise on "free ipads and iphones" scam on social media. With the increasing use of social media, scammers are finding it pretty convenient to scam a vast crowd under one roof. Any such news for free gadgets spreads faster than any legitimate news. Scammers take advantage of this and manage to lure people.

5) Earn Credits for Games Scam!

As the number of users in facebook get increasing so does the tactics of a scammer to scam. Scammers now build fake pages that assure the user to earn credits for games like candy crush, farm vile etc on facebook. Users who are very much keen for these credits end up becoming victims of a scammer.

7) Sensational Headlines and Fake Celebrity Stories Scam!

Scammers build fake headlines and celebrity stories and intend to gain popularity when users share the news and links on their walls. Facebook scam is becoming more and more popular day by day with the increasing use of naïve facebook users and scammers taking advantage by spreading their fake news and stories that help them grow their network.

8) Fake Privacy Settings Scam!

The ultimate aim of any scammer is to obtain the user's personal information. Scammers exploit users by claiming to be from the facebook security team and ask you to verify your username and password. User's who are not aware of such scams end up submitting their personal details on such pages.

Examples of Facebook Scam!

A scam post is making the rounds on Facebook, and a letter is circulating which tells the recipient they have won millions. The swindlers have state lotteries all over the country sounding the alarm, including here in Oklahoma.

Scammers fake identity and try to cheat the users in the name of their own friends. The legitimacy with which they create a fake profile makes every user believe that there is no problem with the profile.

Scammers take advantage of upcoming news events that are yet to happen, and try to make them happen with their scam tactics embedded in the event. The dislike button scam is the best example where users were fooled about the button which was never released by the actual facebook team.

Old Facebook Scam:

Scammers manage to get the user's email address and try to send emails saying the user has been tagged in their friend's pictures. Users sometimes do no pay much heed to where the email has come from. When the user clicks on the link the scammer's malware or virus program gets downloaded in the user's computer.