Beware of Phishing Websites
A Phishing website is a website that looks exactly like the original website, but is actually built by fraudsters or hackers to get user’s’ account information. In this case, a hacker would make a website that looks exactly like the actual Facebook website, and would ask you to enter your account details to login. When you login, it will record your account information and then they will use it to access your personal information and use your Facebook account to do other things. To identify such websites, whenever you enter your username and password, look for the address bar on the top which shows the web page URL. It should start with “www.facebook.com” and not like the one shown in the image above.
Don’t fall for Lottery Scams
A common type of scam on Facebook is a lottery scam. In such a scam, you will get a message from someone claiming that you’ve won a lottery and it’s a really huge amount. They will ask you for your bank details and also ask for your Photo ID to make sure you’re really who you say you are. But beware of such schemes. They are all fake and are just a means of getting bank details for a lot of users. These details can then be used to make illegal payments and stuff.
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Profile Customization Scam
You might have seen a lot of people sharing tricks on Facebook to change the style of your Facebook profile to make it look cooler. Let me tell you that such things are fake. You can not change your Facebook profile styling with anything. It’s the same for everyone. If you follow the instructions there, it will ask you to copy and paste a code into your address bar. If you do that, it will allow the coder to have access to your personal information and it can be used for illegal activities easily.
Contest Scam
Facebook is a victim of contest scams. A contest scam is a type of scam in which the person scamming you would pose as an executive of a big company and convince you that they are hosting a contest where the winner will be awarded hugely. Genuine brands also have such contests but it’s important to distinguish these scammers from genuine people. It is a good idea to look at the profile or the page of the contest host. If the contest host is genuine, you’ll find a link to their official website and if it’s a big brand, you will also find a Verified (Blue tick) sign against their name. The image shown above is of such a scam. In the image, you can clearly see that the name of the page is not verified and there is a “.” at the end of the name. This is clearly a fake profile and hence this contest is a scam.
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Take your Privacy Settings Seriously
Privacy on Facebook can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you manage it. Facebook provides you options to block access to or allow almost everything on your profile. You should set up your privacy settings in a way so that people who are not your friends or family don’t have access to your personal information like your birth date, profile picture and so on. Scams can start by just knowing these basic things. Scammers can take note of these personal information and create a fake account under your name and land you in trouble. There have been instances where users have been affected with such scams. To take note of your privacy settings go to Settings -> Privacy and alter the settings you like there.
Conclusion
I have mentioned a few tips that you can keep in mind to prevent your Facebook account from scams. There will definitely be more scams coming over time, but the basics of these will always remain same. Be sure to follow the tips that are mentioned above in this article. If you know any good tips that others could use, do share it with everyone in the comments section below.
