A funny, not so funny thing happened to me today. Most of the posts I make to Facebook are reserved for Friends and Family, but I linked my “Identifying Scams” blog post on Facebook and made it public because knowledge is the best key to preventing scams. Someone actual commented on it. ”Yay!” They want to be my friend because they are lonely. “Boo!”
Do not! Do not! Do not! Fall for this! Yes, it could be a lonely guy. It is probably a scam. There are two main scam reasons this person wants to be my friend.
1) To get access to my profile and friends list so he can scam my friends.
2) Sextortion – Scammers will spend a long time becoming your friend, and once you are comfortable being their friend, they ask you to send them a picture either naughty or nice. Don’t send pictures! They will try to extort money from you. They will threaten you, your friends, and your family if refuse to pay.
This comment is a clear example how sextortion can start.
I blocked out their picture to protect the real person, just in case the real person’s Facebook page was stolen. I did check out their Facebook profile. Friends “No Following to show.” Posts to their page, only went back for 5 days.
What actions did I take? I hid their response to my post and blocked them. Facebook really wants to make sure that you really want to block someone.
Today, I commented on an article that showed up on my Facebook feed, and someone commented back wanting to be my friend.
Well at least this person didn’t comment on my post about “Identifying Scams.” Their Facebook page only went back 2 days. Their friends also had “No Following to show.” When I did an image search for their pictures, it was a little creepy. There were so many people that resemble this person.
I hid their comment and blocked them too. People who put that many emojis in a comment, deserves to be blocked.
Protect yourself, protect your kids, protect your parents, against this type of scam. I know there are a lot of very lonely people in the world, but there are better ways to make friends. People engage in sextortion are some of the worst types of scammers in the world.
Here are a few articles I found:
Sarah Cath's Adventures 