There are a LOT of scams that show up on Facebook. Below are some of the common ones that we know about. The purpose of most of these is to attempt to engage with an unsuspecting person with hopes of managing to get some money out of them.
- Duct Cleaning Services
- T-Shirt Design
- Dog hit by car
- Death of Celebrity
Duct Cleaning Services
These posts generally talk about “we just moved to town” and want to “keep your family and home a little safer.” They will also claim to be licensed, insured, and bonded, and often state no up front charges.
HOWEVER
You will also notice that there is no way of contacting them except through Facebook. A legitimate business should have at the very least their own Facebook page, if not a full website. You should be able to get a business name from them. Additionally, many times you will find that this person joined the group in the fairly recent past. Their profile will often not have much information showing.
T-Shirt Design
This scammer plays on our emotions. Usually the post talks about “my autistic son” and his “first design he is so proud of creating.” The author then goes on to give a link as to where you can buy that design.
HOWEVER
The websites are generally bulk sale websites. Each person who signs up gets their own sub-page to sell T-shirts on. Whether or not the site is legitimate, and whether or not the product is received, the scam of trying to use emotional blackmail to make a sale makes this a scam.
Dog Hit by Car
This post has some pictures of dogs that are cut, bleeding, and bandaged. The text of the post goes on to talk about either the author hit the dog, or the author found the dog. They are trying to find the dog’s owner because there is no collar or chip.
HOWEVER
Generally this becomes an attempt to acquire money or personal information. The author will end up saying things like “I’ve spent $400 already, and the vet needs another $300 which I don’t have. Can you help me pay these bills?” As you can imagine, once the author of the post gets the $300, they disappear.
Death of Celebrity
This one is attempting to influence the reader by the shock value. A picture of a famous celebrity, with what appears to be the start of a news story about the celebrity being in a car accident, or some other tragic end.
HOWEVER
This scam is trying to take you down a road of clicking things. I just loaded one of these scam pages, and although I briefly saw the image and story, I quickly got a new page from a different domain that said “Click ‘Allow’ if you are not a robot.” Clicking on this may then actually be clicking “Allow” for some software to download to your computer, which then compromises your entire system.
The message in all of these is to take the time to think twice before clicking a post or link in Facebook. There are, of course, a lot of good stuff out there, and a lot of links that are useful. But never let your guard down – always be vigilant when you are online.
