By Señior Tech from the May 2017 Edition
The last few issues I have written about privacy settings in Facebook.
In the past weeks, a few of my friends have posted warnings not to friend them again. The reason, one of their friends may have friended someone who had larceny in their hearts. Once in a friend network, someone can slowly start to friend others because they appear to be trustworthy. After a while, they can start to harvest personal information from all the new friends.
They can then set up a fake Facebook account claiming to be someone in the friend network. Once the fake account has been set up, they send friend requests to everyone in the cloned account to more rapidly collect information. You may wonder how this information can be used. A few examples follow;
- If someone in the group is on vacation, and they have provided their address; the crook can leisurely go over and burgle the vacationer’s home.
- If your grandchild is travelling out of the country, a fake telephone call requesting money to help the grandchild out of a sticky situation (the requester will ask for a non-traceable money order) is possible. My 85 year old Aunt once got one of these calls but was alert enough to call the police.
- Some people provide a lot of information in their Facebook profile; in some cases, more than enough for someone to steal their identities.
- Set up marketing schemes targeted to the list.
To insure you do not fall prey to this scheme, never friend someone you have already friended. If you get one of these requests, immediately contact your friend so they can confirm the request or at least so they can contact Facebook to limit the damage.
I use Facebook to communicate with friends and family I know personally. If you have not already done so, read my articles on setting privacy (the previous 2 issues).
If you use Facebook as a promotional tool; set up a group instead and use your private account only for trusted friends and family.
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Señior Tech is a technology addict that loves to share tips. He lives in Manzanillo full time and helps keep the community up on the latest tech tricks and toys.
