A Very Clever Facebook Scam

[JBChiangRai]

I usually spot scams a mile off, this one almost got me.

 

I got a message from a friend from my University days, he's still a sporty type doing marathons, cycling and fell walking.  The message asked me to do him a favour, later he told me he needed 9 more votes to win a fitness competition and would I vote for him.

 

He sent me a link to the competition which looked genuine.

 

It led to a login page asking me to choose a microsoft account or a facebook account.

 

Choosing the facebook account asked me to sign in, backing up and choosing the microsoft account led me the windows screen asking for my credentials, there was the usual link to other methods besides passwords, except it wasn't a link, it was just blue text.

 

Clearly, he had already succumbed to the same scam and this was the scammer talking to me.

 

I tried to report it to Facebook, there wasn't a suitable option, I did what I could and they wrote back saying they took no action.

 

My friend created a new Facebook account and messaged me, I said "I know why you're contacting me, your account has been hacked?"

 

We had a laugh about it, he told me they wanted $500 to release his account.  I reported it again to Facebook this time giving a link to both profiles saying which was the real one and again they replied saying they had taken no action.

 

This probably the most realistic scam I have seen.

[scubascuba3]

Facebook are useless they don't seem to want to know about scammers, they prefer no work