Cecile Phillips of Jasper said she never had a need to use a computer, but she found enjoyment using one to keep in touch with her many relatives and friends by being a user of the Facebook website. Some of that joy disappeared recently when someone fraudulently used the apparently stolen account of an aquaintance and tried to scam her out of $550.
Facebook could be described as the 21st century version of the party line, an arrangement in which two or more telephone customers were connected directly to the same local loop. When the party line was already in use, if any of the other subscribers to that line picked up the phone, they could hear and participate in the conversation. The completely non-private party lines were a cultural fixture of rural areas for many decades, and were frequently used as a source of entertainment and gossip. But it could also be used as a means of quickly alerting entire neighborhoods in case of emergencies such as fires.
The computer age has ushered in new technologies, and Facebook, Inc., took advantage of it. Since September 2006, anyone over the age of 13 with a valid e-mail address can become a Facebook user. Users can add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Additionally, users can join networks organized by city, workplace, and school or college. Facebook has met with some controversy in the past over privacy issues as it has been compromised several times.
So much so that another Web site has developed called All Facebook, The Unofficial Facebook Resource and it has a page dedicated to Facebook scams users should protect themselves from (www.allfacebook.com/2010/01/facebook-scams/).
“As Facebook has grown in popularity, it has also become a primary target for hackers and spammers. An increasing number of Facebook users are having their accounts compromised. Each newly compromised account is then used by the hackers and scammers to propagate their scam further. You don’t need to be an idiot to have your account compromised. If you are caught off guard for a second, you may accidentally fall for one of these scams,” All Facebook says.
Cecile was nearly the victim of what All Facebook calls, The Western Union Scam, “I’ve Been Robbed! Western Union Me Money!”
“You’re browsing around Facebook and suddenly one of your friends instant messages (IM) you to tell you that they’re stuck in another country, they’ve been robbed, don’t have a wallet, and need money to get out of the country. It’s a horrible situation but what are the odds that they found a computer to log on to in order to instant message you? Even worse, what are the odds that one of your friends who was traveling abroad got robbed and wasn’t able to find anybody to help them out?”
Cecile said she was browsing and received a message she thought was legitimate because it had her friend’s photo and address. The message was that the friend and family was in London and they had been mugged and robbed.
Cecile wondered what they were doing in London, Arkansas. The message sender then related that all they had were their passports. At that point Cecile said she became suspicous because she knew that the person was in Springdale just two days earlier. She decided to play along and while continuing to communicate on Facebook she text messaged other friends by phone to confirm that the people in question were not in London, England.
The main reason for the message was that the senders wanted Cecile to wire $550 to an unidentifiable email address. No telephone numbers or physical addresses were given.
Cecile said she reported the incident to both the Sheriff’s Office and to the Arkansas Attorney General’s Office, but there is nothing those agencies can do.
“Most of the times that this happens, it is a scammer who has stolen your friend’s account and is systematically going through and IMing each of their friends to try and get money wired to them. Don’t fall for it!” All Facebook warns.
By JEFF DEZORT
Newton County Times