Facebook Phishing Scam Costs Victims Thousands of Dollars

Would you wire money to a relative – or friend – if they asked you to via Facebook? Be honest.

Typically scammers use hijacked accounts to dupe friends and relatives of Facebook users into wiring them money, feeding the victim stories that range from them claiming that they’ve somehow wound up stranded in another country with no money to urging them to apply for a government grant.

While these phishing scams may be obvious to some, it’s not to others and phishing scam victims lose thousands of dollars to cybercriminals despite countless warnings floating around the internet.

Woman Loses $2,000 in Facebook Phishing Scam

Take Edythe Schumacher for example.

It was recently reported that Edythe had fallen for a Facebook phishing scam when her sister’s Facebook account got hijacked and the cybercrooks sent Edythe a chat message suggesting that she pay a $2,000 up-front fee in order to apply for a government grant to get up to $500,000.

While Edythe’s sister had sent an email to all of her Facebook friends & family members, Edythe didn’t get a chance to read that warning message until after she had already fallen for the scam.

The Facebook phishing scheme was so elaborate that the scammer actually took things offline by instructing Edythe to contact a “Sgt. Chris Swecker” for more details.  “Chris Swecker” – which ironically is the name of an FBI agent who specialized in electronic crimes years ago - then instructed Edythe to Western Union the funds to a lady in Massachusetts.

Edythe did as she was told before realizing she’d been scammed.

Phishing scams are nothing new on Facebook either. Scams like these have been running rampant on the popular social networking site for years now.

Protect Yourself from Facebook Phishing Scams

Now that you’re aware of the dangers of Facebook, what can you do?

• Think twice before wiring money to a friend or relative. If you receive a message from a friend or family member asking you to Western Union them a good chunk of dough, try calling them up to confirm that it’s actually them. Remember, there’s no way to recover funds sent through Western Union once it ends up in the wrong hands, so do your best to make sure it doesn't happen in the first place.


• Don't believe everything you read on Facebook. If a friend is saying there in a compromising position or that they want you to participate in a deal that seems "too good to be true" then perhaps it's time to pick up the phone and give them a ring. You just may find that you weren't reading the words of a friend, but a scammer instead.


• Keep more than one email address on file with Facebook. Having a secondary email address in your Facebook account may come in handy if it's ever compromised since Facebook uses the secondary email to confirm that you are the rightful owner. Of course, this doesn't apply if the hijacker removes it.


• Use different passwords for your Facebook account & email address. If a criminal managed to get a hold of your Facebook login credentials you don’t want them getting in anywhere else, do you? It’s always recommended not to share passwords on multiple websites because cybercrooks can easily start spreading across multiple websites that you use, hijacking your accounts and changing all of your passwords. Then it could really get out of hand.

If you suspect that YOUR account is ever compromised, do your best to alert your friends and family to minimize the chances of them being scammed. Make sure you use more than one method to notify them to ensure they're up to speed on things before the hijacker attempts to scam them.

Stay safe, Facebookers!

Photo Credit: Don Hankins