A brief list of things you’re not getting simply for liking a page on Facebook

December 21, 2011

Facebook scams? Inconceivable!Several times a month, I hear about a new scam making the Facebook rounds. Inevitably, they all seem to involve the same pattern: this company is giving away a free gift card (or item) to everyone on Facebook if they like this page!

I don’t always write a new article about it because I would just end up with a template; “There’s a new scam on Facebook, claiming that ____ is giving away $_____ gift cards for liking a page. Don’t do it.” I’d rather just talk about the principle than rehash the specifics every single time.

For one thing, think about the numbers: Ikea is giving away $1,000 gift cards to everyone on Facebook? There are 800 million people on Facebook. That means their budget for this one promotion would be $800 billion. Ikea’s profits in 2010 were “only” 2.7 billion. Heck, the entire GDP of Sweden was $338 billion last year.

But, just in case you’d like a few examples of things you’re not going to get for free just for clicking “like” on a page, here’s a brief list:

  • $100 Costco gift card
  • $1,000 Ikea gift card
  • Amazon.com gift card
  • $100 KFC gift card
  • $1,000 Walmart gift card
  • Free iPad2
  • $50 Starbucks gift card
  • $25 iTunes gift card
  • A free gift card in any amount, or a free trendy high-tech device, from any retailer in the entire Universe, including all possible parallel Universes and/or dimensions, from now until the very end of Time itself (and in all future incarnations thereof if it turns out Time is cyclical and is repeated on a Cosmic infinite loop of some kind), ever, just for “liking” page on Facebook. This includes if you find yourself in a whimsical land of magic and wonder after chasing a white rabbit down a hole, or after hiding in a wardrobe and ending up in a forest and being greeted by the Faun Tumnus.

That last one is a little more general.

The point is: these are scams. They always have been, and they always will be. Don’t “like” the pages, don’t even visit the pages. If you’ve got friends who keep falling for this stuff, tell them it’s a scam. Every single time if you have to. A little public shaming can go a long way.

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Posted by Clint

FPU Noir: The Lost Messages on Facebook

October 4, 2011

FPU Noir

Note: for maximum atmosphere, first scroll to the bottom of this post and play the YouTube video, and listen to the music while you read.

The night meowed at the window of the dingy third-floor office on the wrong side of town like a housecat left out in the rain, trying to draw my gaze from the hand of solitaire laid out on the desk between half-empty cups of cold coffee, old newspapers and an ashtray spilling over with stale butts. I glanced at the window and shuddered for some reason, then wondered who left all the spent Chesterfields there, seeing as how I don’t smoke. They made a good prop, though, so I returned to my cards. If I could just find the other red queen, I was set.

It was the kind of night that slithers through the gutters and alleyways, around garbage cans and dumpsters, up fire escapes and into the ventilation. It always finds a way in, always creeps up behind you, always gets you in the end. There was a knock at the door, and a woman entered.

She was one sad-luck dame by the look of her, all switchblade sadness and razor gloom, whatever that means. She was carrying a laptop computer (which seemed anachronistic given the setting, but this was the Fraud Prevention Unit, and these newfangled bean-counters were the rule these days).

She just stood there for a minute and looked unsure. “Are…are you the one they call ‘Sledge?’”

“That’s me,” I said. “Hank Sledge, Private Fraud Investigator.”

“Oh. I…oh.” She swayed on the spot, as if trying to decide something.

“C’mon, spill it, sister,” I spat.

“Well, it’s just…I got this email the other day and I don’t know what to do.”

I looked at the gray computer tucked under her arm. “And you figure some mug’s got you pegged as an easy mark? Toss that mill up here on the table. Let’s see what we got.”

She placed the laptop on the desk and hit the power button. It took a minute to start up, and the awkwardness hung in the air like burnt toast. “So…um…read any good books lately?” I started to say, but the machine was ready.

“This one right here,” she said, and I read the email.

The message said it was from Facebook, and if it was a ringer it was a darn good one. It went like this:

From: Facebook <notification+tnejvqakyz@notifierfacebook.com>
Subject: You have 3 lost messages on Facebook…

Facebook sent you a notification

You have 3 lost messages on Facebook, to recover a messages please follow the link below: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?recover.messages=563f03b5d6f9

How to get back your lost messages on Facebook

At the bottom was a green button that said “Frequently Asked Questions.”

“Did you click on anything in this mess?” I said.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“You can’t think so. You either clicked or you didn’t. Think hard.”

“No, I didn’t. Jeez. Jerk.”

“Sorry ma’am. Hardboiled crime fiction. I have to talk to everybody that way.”

“Oh.’”

“Anyway,” I continued, “it’s good you didn’t click. This is a swindle through and through. See this?” I showed her the message header. “If it was from Facebook, it wouldn’t be coming from some ‘notifierfacebook.com’ domain.”

“And check this out.” I moused over the link. “It says ‘facebook.com,’ but it’s disguised. Every link in the message takes you to this weird ‘winesofworld.org’ website. Classic phishing message. These punks either want to infect your computer with malware or steal your password. There’s also the crummy English; see where it says, ‘to recover a messages?’ Makes no sense. Finally, there’s no such thing as ‘lost’ messages on Facebook.”

Her eyes were dinner plates. “So what do I do with it?”

“If I was you, lady, I’d drill it with my heater,” I spat.

“What?”

“Just delete it.”

“Oh,” she said, and snapped the laptop shut. “Okay, cool. Thanks. Nice hat, by the way.”

I nodded thanks as she disappeared out the door and went back to my game. Black eight to red nine. The card underneath was the queen of diamonds. “There’s my lady,” I murmured over the lonesome wail of a siren echoing across the night.

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Posted by Clint

Facebook Scams: They’re after your children

August 24, 2011

Facebook scams involving pop culture icons are nothing new.

How many people clicked on a link promising a video of Justin Bieber behaving badly, only to end up on a bogus survey site and spread the disease to all their friends when the malicious site forced them to “like” the video (sight unseen because there was no video) to proceed? At some point, the victim is asked to reveal their phone number, which causes about $30 worth of premium-rate services to show up on their phone bill.

There was another one that promised advance movie tickets to one of the Harry Potter sequels. Same deal: bogus survey site. Now there’s one that promises tickets to a Twilight sequel that isn’t even coming out for over a year. Betcha can’t guess what it leads to.

Think about who these con artists are targeting.

They’re not targeting me. I don’t care how Justin Bieber is behaving. I’m a cranky music nerd in my mid-30s; I already suspect Bieber of evil just by the mere fact that his music exists (although if you slow it down 800%, it’s absolutely gorgeous—is this what it sounds like to 11 year old girls?).

No, they’re targeting your kids. I know that generalizations are bad, but I also know that billions are spent each year on marketing and demographics research. Check it out:

  1. Who are the people, by gender and age, who really care about the next Twilight move?
  2. Are these people “heavy” or “rare” Facebook users?
  3. Given their age, are they more or less likely to be somewhat impulsive and easily swayed by a Facebook friend’s “like?”
  4. Do they tend to have cellular phones or not?

It’s a perfect storm; if they only snag 1% of teenage girls who use Facebook, are into Twilight and have cell phones, that’s about fifty gazillion scam victims right there. At $30 per fraudulent cell phone charge, we’re talking some serious coin.

The key is to somehow get your kids to understand what a Facebook scam looks like. What’s okay to click on? What’s not? How do you impress upon them to never, ever give out their phone number (or other personal information) to a website?

Facebook recently (and finally) released a guide to using the site safely. You can download it here: Own Your Space: A Facebook Guide to Security. I applaud the company for, at long last, finally admitting that their site is not totally safe to just blindly click on everything that shows up on your page.

The guide claims to be “For Young Adults, Parents and Educators,” but I doubt many teens are going to read anything that begins with the sentence, “If there was any doubt on the incredible power of social networking, consider the more than one billion pieces of content shared each day with over half a billion users.” I’m about to fall asleep just pasting that, and I have a degree in English Literature; long, dull treatises were a daily encounter at one point in my life .

No, this thing was written for adults, and there’s some really good information within. Download it and read it yourself, then talk to your kids. I suppose the best way to really learn the ropes is to join the site yourself, but at the very least, talk to them about security on a regular basis. And make sure they know there are no free movie tickets.

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Posted by Clint

Facebook “check out your profile stalkers” scam

May 31, 2011

For what seems like the millionth time, a scam has made the rounds on Facebook purporting to reveal to users who has viewed their profiles, only to turn out to be yet another in a long line of malware attacks. Here’s the text of the wall post:

“OMG! Its unbelievable now you can get to know who views your profile. I can see my top profile visitors and I am so shocked that my ex is still creeping my profile every hour.”

If you click on it, it tells you to paste a line of code into the URL field…you know what? I’m not even going to go into it. Suffice it to say that it perpetuates the scam.

Here’s the thing: there is no way to see who has viewed your Facebook profile. There’s never going to BE a way to see who has viewed your Facebook profile. OMG! I KNOW, RIGHT?!

Here are the key takeaways from this information:

  • If you see a wall post claiming to link to an application or website that shows you who has viewed your profile, don’t even stop to wonder if it’s real. It’s not. It never has been, and it never will be.
  • You don’t NEED to see who has viewed your profile. What are you really going to do with that information? If you answer that question honestly, it’s “nothing positive.”
  • You also don’t NEED to see that, no, your ex is totally NOT “creeping” your profile “every hour,” because he actually couldn’t care less what you’re up to anymore. Just enjoy the (more than a little conceited) assumption that he’s pining for you, unable to sleep or eat, scrawling tortured poetry in a black notebook under a bare 40-watt light bulb. If that’s what it takes to get you through the day.
  • If you’re still worried about who is looking at your profile, set it to “private” already.
  • If you’re still still worried about who is looking at your profile, click the little X in the upper right corner of the screen (or wherever the X is on a Mac), shut down the computer completely and stand up. Put on some shoes. Now, walk out the front door of your house and look around. Go for a run. Or a walk. Or drive to the library. Call someone on the phone and talk. Arrange to meet and do something together. Repeat daily until you no longer care who is looking at your Facebook profile.

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Posted by Clint

Online privacy vs. the need to share

December 8, 2010
Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...

Image via CrunchBase

I’ve been on the fence about social networking lately. To what extent does it allow us to connect, reconnect and share, and to what extent does it give far too many third parties access to our personal lives?

And when I say “social networking,” let’s have it out in the open: that means Facebook. I mean, it’s possible to overshare on Twitter, but most tweets amount to inane babble that doesn’t reveal much about anything. It’s possible to overshare on MySpace, but that would require people to still be using MySpace when, in general, they’re not. It’s all about the Facebook these days.

Sure, Facebook can be fun. You can find people you haven’t seen in years. Share photos. Make flippant remarks about everything (this is mostly what I do there).

But I think the company is cocky sometimes. They have been guilty of assuming that, just because you want to share a photo with your friends, you automatically want to share it with literally every single person (and company) with an Internet connection. I also heard they were predicting 750 million, then 1 billion, users before too long, after they hit 500 million. Sorry. It isn’t going to happen. Facebook has been the king for a few years, but if there’s one rule on the Internet, it’s that nothing lasts forever. Unless you’re Google, apparently. I digress.

If you still want to use Facebook rather than be an early un-adopter and delete your account, I think it’s okay to do so, but you have to keep a few things in mind. You can’t just click everything that shows up on your screen.

Privacy Settings

Check your privacy settings every now and then. The safest method is to set everything on “Friends Only.” That mostly locks other people out, as far as viewing your photos and reading what you post.

Whenever Facebook introduces a new feature, new layout, or other big changes, it’s a good idea to re-check your privacy settings. In the past, “new look” usually meant “we changed all your settings back to the default, which is everybody in the universe can see everything you post.” A major update just came out, or is about to; I can’t even tell anymore. At any rate, check your settings regularly, just to make sure.

Regardless of settings, your name, location and profile photo are still visible, though. Keep that in mind. Also, if you use any “Facebook apps” (games, etc.), the publishers of those can also access your information. Which brings us to…

Applications/Games

Here’s the short version: just don’t do it. Farmville. Mafia Wars. Happy Aquarium. Farm Wars. Happy Mafia. Whatever. Just avoid them.

See, the problem with these applications is that they are created by third-party vendors, not Facebook itself. While Facebook has a privacy policy in place with regards to your information (bad PR pretty much forced their hand), these other companies might be a little more…free…with your info. It’s better to keep a tighter watch on who has your data.

Plus, these games are just a massive waste of time. You can’t tell me those hours wouldn’t be better spent away from your computer.

Other Things You Can Click On But Shouldn’t

It’s not all just apps and games on Facebook, either. There are always a million things showing up in your friends’ status feeds, often with accompanying links.

Here’s your first rule: there is no app that will tell you who has viewed your profile. It doesn’t exist. There are, however, scams that use this promise to give crooks access to your profile.

Here’s another one: any combination of words like “OMG,” “this really works,” “five things,” or scandalous videos depicting a celebrity currently huge with teenagers (Justin Beiber is the soup du jour), is not going to lead you to what it says it will lead you to. It’s called “likejacking,” and I’ve written about it before.

One more: your friend is not stranded in London, having been mugged. Someone has hacked his account and is trying to get you to wire money overseas.

Basically, if you’re using Facebook for anything beyond connecting with friends, you’re opening your information up to third parties. Some of them just want to advertise to you. Others want to steal from you.

Okay, it’s probably okay to “like” your favorite band’s official page in order to stay updated on new releases and tour dates. And it was funny when that pickle got more fans than Nickelback.

But, really, is all of this necessary? My goal would be to spend less time on Facebook, not more. I started using the Internet in 1995, and I’ll be honest: I’ve gained some weight over those 15 years. I can’t help but wonder if I’d be more fit now if I’d done more face-to-face social networking, and less BBQ-potato-chip-to-face social networking while sitting in front of a computer screen.

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Posted by Clint

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