Who Always Look Into My Profile??

This is a poorly written version of the common, “Who is checking my profile?” scam. In fact, except for the poor English in the headline, it’s identical.

Here are the attributes to look out for:

1. The image is set up like the “Who is checking my profile?” scam.
2. The app name does not match the headline and multiple friends have been tagged at random.
3. The “Try it, really works!” comment is present. Again.
4. The album poster is not the person who owns the profile it appears on.

TIP: If you see that you’ve been tagged in a photo, before clicking, see if it’s a friend of yours. If not, do not click. Ignore. If it is a friend, click through only to see the image. If it’s not a photo of you, leave the page or report it. It’s likely this scam, or one similar.

“Several”

This is a very unusual version of the Facebook album scams hitting this week. While it has a lot of the standard characteristics of the others, it doesn’t pretend to be an app; it’s just a nice piece of artwork. It is also lacking the “Try it, really works!” comment.

Here are the three characteristics to watch out for:

1. Fantasy artwork that has little or nothing to do with the member’s interests.
2. Multiple friends will be tagged in the photo. We’ve noticed that the Fantasy Art scam tags twice the number of friends as the other scams.
3. Album name is “several” and the “posted by” name will not be the owner of the Facebook profile.

TIP: If you see that you’ve been tagged in a photo, before clicking, see if it’s a friend of yours. If not, do not click. Ignore. If it is a friend, click through only to see the image. If it’s not a photo of you, leave the page or report it. It’s likely this scam, or one similar.

And it’s spreading fast! The email is short, cheesy and semi-Engrish, but nonetheless contains a password stealer that is instantly activated once you open it. The password stealer may grab more than just your Facebook credentials, so please do not open this email. The email itself has the following elements:

From: help@facebook.com
Subject: Facebook Password Reset Confirmation Customer Support
Email Body: Dear user of facebook,

Because of the measures taken to provide safety to our clients, your password has been changed.
You can find your new password in attached document.

Thanks,
Your Facebook

You can tell from reading the email, that the grammar is atrocious, the subject line is overly long and somewhat contradictory (you wouldn’t confirm something the user hasn’t done yet), and customer support would not be in charge of an email server operation. The opening, “Dear user of facebook” is clearly not how Facebook would address you. It would have your name, and if they did reference themselves, they would certainly capitalize Facebook. And ending with “Your Facebook?” Please.

More details on All Facebook.

Life Gets Better…One Good Thought At A Time

This screenshot was sent in by Stacy V., who spotted it on her friend’s Facebook account. She thought it was a little odd, checked with me and confirmed minutes later that it was definitely fraudulent.

At first this appears to be a legitimate gift from a friend except:

1. Gifts do not appear in photo albums; only on walls or within the app itself.
2. The app URL is suspect (length).
3. GIfts are not generally tagged. You would generally receive a notice that you have received a gift via the Notifications listing.

This scam looks like it does the same thing as “Who is looking at my profile?” that we profiled the other day. Unfortunately the screenshot she supplied me does not show the first comment (the others so far have the exact same first comment). I will update you as soon as I find that out.

TIP: If you see that you’ve been tagged in a photo, before clicking, see if it’s a friend of yours. If not, do not click. Ignore. If it is a friend, click through only to see the image. If it’s not a photo of you, leave the page or report it. It’s likely this scam, or one similar.

The Sims 5626

March 23 Update: Another variant of the Sims scam is appearing. The numbers will change from person to person, (i.e., Sims 9242, Sims 3876) but the app name is now appearing as “game-simulation” as in http://apps.facebook.com/game-simulation/ and oddly, the non-working link of http://apps.facebook.com//. This is likely a bad cut and paste.

The Sims scam has made the rounds lately on Facebook. It works exactly like the “Who is checking my profile?” scam I wrote about yesterday. An album appears on the member’s Photos tab with numerous screenshots of the Sims, as if they were screens taken from the game. This is common on Facebook. A number of the Zynga games, including Farmville and Fishville have album creation capabilities.

Notice the anomalies however, that distinguish it from being an actual Sims game on Facebook.

1. The title is always,”Let’s enjoy this game and be one of us.” The broken English should be a giveaway. EA Games would never allow that.
2. The “girls fighting in underwear” screenshot is common. There are four screens that I have come across in this scam, but this one is the most prevalent.
3. Sims 5626. In other words, not The Sims. Author is “Joe Caba”, not EA Games. Joe Caba, by the way, is not a member of Facebook. I checked.
4. Lastly, the ever present, “Try it, really works!!” comment rears its ugly head once again.

TIP: Always check first, if it was a friend who tagged you in a photo before adding any applications. Never assume because a screenshot of a game was used, that the app is from the actual game. It only takes 30 seconds to Google “The Sims” and find out that the Sims is made by EA, not Joe Caba.