Earlier this week Hailey Bunker received the same message on Facebook Messenger from three different people. One was the same message from her friend in Japan in Japanese. It was warning Bunker that her account had been cloned and she needed to forward the message to all her contacts. The message seemed like it was warning about a scam, but it was actually a hoax that went viral. “I was really annoyed,” Bunker said.
We are seeing that Facebook scams are getting more frequent and more creative. Tracy Flinders, of BYU’s Office of Information Technology, says you can avoid getting scammed by looking for things that seem out of place, appear unusual, or make you feel uncomfortable. Check for spelling errors, poor grammar, and bogus email addresses and names.
“Most scams have some element where they ask you to personally extent your personal credit, or your personal finances, and buy things and then they’ll reimburse you,” said Todd Berrett, of BYU’s Office of Information Technology. “A lot have people have been doing it for a while and they know what they’re doing.”
