Facebook Fake Giveaways

Lots of scammers use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media networks to offer supposedly free gifts e.g. supermarket vouchers.

The scammers claim to have items of high value to give away to the first people replying to their advert.

There are various forms of this scam, with the most common being the offering of APPLE devices – iPads and iPhones. The offer usually claims that there is some strange reason why these expensive devices are to be given away e.g. they were returned unopened to the retailer or there was some minor technical issue or customs issues or a marketing ploy.

Whatever the fake reason, these are always fake.

Marketing companies do at times give items away, but it is very limited in volume and value and usually only to known customers.

The only people offering APPLE products for free are scammers.

The next most common variant of this scam is where scammers offer free supermarket vouchers – most people have realised these are always fake and no longer reply to such adverts but there are always some who do and may lose out as the scammer’s always have a way of getting something from the people who reply – maybe by selling their email address and other details  to identity thieves or email spam list providers or by conning the people into further scams in the hope of getting something valuable for free.

Watch out for these ‘free offer” scams in whatever guise.

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.

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Stupidest Spam of the Week Radio Station Email

Most scammers send out millions of their scam messages to random email addresses, that they have purchased from other scammers.

One scammer has decided to target radio stations with her latest malware.

The message says it is an open letter to the UN security council, which makes no sense.

Then it switches to a message ‘Hi Team,’ and has paragraphs of such general statements as to be essentially meaningless.

E.g. “I wanted to let you all know what a fantastic job you are doing”.

“You have been absolutely fantastic in turning things around”.

“I appreciate your hard work”.

“The job atmosphere has completely changed”.

“You have met all my requests”.

“You have transitioned into the routines seamlessly”.

Plus, the message has been sent to many hundreds of email addresses rather than to anyone specific.

The message contains a zip file named as playlist, but everyone knows it is stupid to open a zip file as the only people, outside of certain techies, who send zip files are scammers hoping to infect your computer with malware.

To enter your email address and click on the subscribe button on top right to keep up to date with new posts.

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Facebook Privacy Check

Facebook can help you to review your privacy settings.

This feature is called Privacy Check-up and you can access it by clicking the small down triangle icon at the top right corner of the Facebook screen. You click “Settings and Privacy” then “Privacy Check-up”.

Things you can review in Privacy Checkup:

  • Advert preferences
  • Who can see what you share
  • How to keep your account secure
  • How people can find you on Facebook
  • Your data settings
  • How to keep your account secure

Everyone should go through these options carefully and restrict access to your account information, restrict who sees your posts and so on.

The less the criminals can see of your activity the safer. You do not strangers seeing your birthdate, phone number, relationship status etc.

The section on keeping your account secure contains good advice on having a strong password and turning on alerts means you will be warned if here is an unusual login to your account.

Many people use Facebook to login to other services – this saves on having extra logins but means Facebook knows a lot more about your activities. You can also review which APPS you have given permission to access your Facebook details. If you’re not sure why an APP needs that access then revoke that permission.

Stay safe on Facebook and periodically use the Privacy checker to make sure all is in order

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.

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The Fake Next of Kin Scam

This is a common scam and is a variant of the Advance Fee Scam (also known as the 419 scam).

It is most commonly carried out by Nigerians or strangely by people from elsewhere but claiming to from Nigeria.

There is a story, sometimes pages of it, trying to explain how the sender is some kind of bank official or government official and they have control of bank accounts. One of which belongs to a recently deceased person with no next of kin and no official will. Here’s the con. The sender wants you to pretend to be the next of kin to the dead person and claim the inheritance, which you then split with the sender.

An example of this scam is an email from Mr. Konibally Kone, although he spells his name differently at places in the email so must be confused on who he is today.

His deceased client supposedly left $13.7 million which he and I can share as long as I follow his instructions.

He also promises it is totally safe as he has all the required legal documents.

Of course, he does not have an official email address – just a Gmail personal address in the name christpoher 654321.

All I have to do is reply with name, address, contact details, date of birth and Id document.

For anyone who does reply, the scam follows the standard pattern where he or she gets drawn into the scam and has to pay an unexpected but small amount for some purpose then another fee then another and so on till the victim realised there is no fortune, just a scammer taking their money.

Also, the scammers will likely sell your details to other criminals who carry out identity theft.

Money for nothing is always a scam and pretending to be the next of kin of someone dead is a pretty nasty thing to agree to.

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.

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Who Are The Data Brokers ?

Data brokers, also known as information brokers, collect personal information, package it into bundles, and sell it to advertisers or other third parties.

On the Internet, we are effectively giving away huge amounts of personal information by using search engines, posting on social media, accessing websites that track us, using mobile phone APPS, buying and selling etc.

We give this information away freely and sometimes it’s used for our benefit but often to help businesses sell more to us and scammers to take from us.

Data brokerage relies on this freely available information that they can collect, package and sell on.

The largest of the data brokers are Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion and it’s a multi billion dollar industry.

There are four main types of data brokerage:

  1. Marketing and advertising

This information lets the advertiser target what they believe are relevant adverts at you. Can lead to adverts for the same products following you around from web site to web site. Some people prefer to have targeted adverts rather than random ones, but many feel this intrusive.

  1. Financial information

This is essential at times e.g. when you want to take out a bank loan or a mortgage – the prospective lender needs to be able to check on your previous financial dealings to determine what level of risk you are.

This data is also used to prevent fraud.

  1. Personal health information

This more about Marketing than about any benefit to you. Companies want to know what medication you buy, what health supplements you use, what medical questions you search on etc.  in order to sell more health products and services to you.

  1. People Search

These companies look for any information on you that they can find (e.g. social media profiles and postings, companies house records etc.) and then sell to a wide range of businesses including political organisations, charities, Marketing companies and many more. There are numerous web sites where you can lookup individuals – usually they charge for more than basic information.

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.

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