How to spot a social media scam - and 5 tips to avoid them

Social media scams have always been around, but it seems that each year they get a little more sophisticated and a bit more targeted. 

This week on Facebook a lot of folks in Rochester, N.Y. (where I’m based) opened Facebook and there in their news feed was a post seemingly offering a "free $200 grocery coupon" (see image) to Wegmans supermarkets – the biggest and by-far-the-most-popular chain in the area. The posts were accompanied by poster’s comments such as “Wow” and “Can you believe this?”

The widely shared scam post

Well … no. There were a couple of clues right in the post that it was a scam.

• The URL (web address) at the bottom of the public post does not look like it belongs to Wegmans’s official page
• The English is fractured – typical in scams since they are often posted overseas by non-native English speakers 

Then, if an offer seems too good to be true, well it likely is. So don’t ever click on the headline or any link before going to Wegmans (or any supposed posting company’s) official social media page.

In this case a quick visit to Wegmans’ official Facebook page shows that this "offer" is not posted there and instead there’s a warning about the scam.

The warning on the Wegmans Facebook page

If you do click through to the offer (not recommended as this can be the way the scammers download malicious software onto your computer) there will be abundant evidence that this is a scam. For example: In the case of the Wegmans "offer" it was a digital counter counting down how many coupons supposedly remained. Every time the page refreshed it went back to 360 and started counting down again… 

And, if you are a business that has been spoofed and your organization’s name associated with a scam you should quickly do two things:

• Post something on your own social accounts warning about the scam so people will find the information there.
• Contact the affected social networks and ask for the malicious scam material to be taken down and the poster banned.

Both of which Wegmans did very quickly after the coupon scam surfaced …. 

So, in general what are the best ways anyone can avoid falling for a scam?

Top 5 Tips to Avoid a Social Media Scam

1. Does this news/post sound too good to be true? If it does it likely is. Headlines screaming unbelievably exciting or tragic news. Or offers of cash or goods that seem like they would make your life a lot better. Or words such as “Unbelievable,” “Shocking” and “Disturbing.” All are often related to an attempt to get your attention and get you to click.

As mentioned above, the first thing to do is seek verification by going to an official social network site to see if the post exists there. Or go to Snopes.com and enter a few key words from the item – Snopes is the best online debunker of fake news/information (and, in fact, had an item posted about the Wegmans coupon scam within a few hours). Even a general Google search might turn up warnings that something is a scam.

2. Think before acting: Typically scammers want to make you feel you have to act quickly. Nothing on social media is a matter of life or death. For example, those urgent appeals from a friend who lost their wallet overseas? Think about it: Why are they using Facebook or Twitter to reach out to all their friends?

3. Ask yourself: Is this a chain letter? The old chain letter used to ask people to forward a letter to a number of friends to bring good luck or cash. Today, by way of examples, the chain letter takes the form of "Tweet this image and Bill Gates will donate $100 to help premature babies" or "Share this post with your Facebook friends and Mark Zuckerberg will randomly pick 1,000 people to each receive $1 million in Facebook stock." These appeals almost always tap into a grain of truth, but would these very rich men really do what is proposed?

4. Watch for phishing attacks: You innocently click on a link you find on a Facebook or Twitter post and you are asked to log in using your Facebook or Twitter credentials – don’t. Yes there may be a legitimate reason some sites want you to do this, but before you do check out the URL of the page you are now on. Is it still a Facebook page or some other legitimate site? If not this site is wanting you to sign in so it can grab your credentials and hijack your account.

5. Be cautious of shortened URLs: Don’t blindly click on shortened URLs. You'll see them everywhere on Twitter, for example. But because they are shortened and consist of a garbled collection of characters you can’t tell where the link will take you. The best practice is only click on shortened links from social media posters you highly trust. This is not foolproof, but offers a degree of protection.

Hopefully these tips will spare some of you the grief of having been fooled by a scam or, worse, having your social media accounts compromised.

Social Media Scams: 11 Tips to Fight Them

This guy's looking to scam you

Social media has come a long way and the more it grows the more it is fertile territory for scams and con artists.

Go to the urban legend site Snopes - and I highly recommend this site as THE best place on the web to check for any kind of scam or mischief – and enter the name of your favorite social network in the search box there. 

Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or Instagram chances are there are several if not dozens of scams related to that platform listed on Snopes.

How easy is it for scammer and other malicious types to target us on social networks?

According to the 2012 Norton Cybercrime Report - from the company behind Norton computer and Internet security software - says people on social networks are increasingly falling victim to online scams. The report says of social network users:

- Four in 10 have fallen victim to cybercrime on social networking platforms 

- One in six report that someone has hacked into their profile and pretended to be them

- One in 10 have fallen victim to a scam or fake link on social network platforms

- 36 percent have accepted friend or follow requests from people they don’t know

- Only half use privacy settings to control what information they share and with whom.

This is just confirms what anyone on social networks already knows: As social media attract more and more people and they spend more and more time there scammers see opportunity.

The scams can be the annoying, but harmless "you need to change your Facebook settings"-type messages or they can be malicious links that are innocently shared because no one bothered to check them.

For example, recently two very smart people I’m connected to both fell for the Facebook Graph Search scam that starts with this … 

"Hello to all of you who are on my list of contacts of Facebook. I would like to ask a favor of you…. You may not know that Facebook has changed its privacy configuration once again. Thanks to the new "Graphic app", any person in Facebook anywhere in the world can see our photos, our "likes" and our "comments". During the next two weeks, I am going to keep this message posted and I ask you to do the following…"

While does Graph Search make it easier for you to find content on Facebook it does not change your privacy settings.

So what can you do to protect yourself and your family on social media? Here are my …

11 Basic Social Media Safety Tips:

Keep your personal information private: Be careful what information you share and post online and with whom you share it– expect that people other than your friends can see it.

Don’t post information that would make you or your family vulnerable: This might include details such as your date of birth, address, information about your daily routine, holiday plans or the school your children attend.

Set your online social networking profiles to private: Never share your account details with others and regularly update your computer’s security software. Note: If you choose not to set some accounts to private remember to be extra cautious about what you share and who you connect with.

Grant access cautiously: Apps often allow you to sign in via Twitter or Facebook, but in so doing are you granting unknown people access to your account? One small safeguard is to Google any app by name before clicking through. If there is trouble with an app chances are someone has posted about it.

Practice good password security: Use strong passwords (minimum of eight characters with a mix of uppercase and lowercase characters and at least one wild card character such as a dollar sign or an ampersand, for example). Change your passwords regularly and have a different password for each social networking site so that if one password is stolen, not all of your accounts will be at risk.

Try not to access social networking sites on public computers: Use your own computer or smartphone instead of the computers at libraries and other public places. Your login information can be intercepted.

Only "friend" real friends: Don’t accept a friend or follow request from a stranger - people are not always who they say they are and the best way to keep scammers out of your life is to never let them in. Likewise don’t answer social media messages or even cellphone texts from people or numbers you don’t recognize.

Use Google: Google yourself at least once a month search for your name and your own variations of it (i.e. “Jonathan Smith” and “Jon Smith”) and also use Google alerts on your name and family members’ names so that you get an email notification when your name crops up on the web. This can be an invaluable early warning that someone else is pretending to be you.

Be ultra cautious about any request for money even if it appears to be from a family member or a good friend. If you receive such a request, contact your friend via another means to check the request is genuine before responding. Do not use any of the contact details in the message.

Click with care: Never click on suspicious links on social networking sites – even if they are from your friends. If the link is from a trusted friend or has an identifiable URL you should be OK.

Educate your children on the dangers of social networking scams. Younger social media users may be more computer savvy than you, but they can be blissfully unaware of the dangers of identity theft and digital scams.

So, what do you think? Will you start being more careful with your information on social media? Will you encourage others to do likewise?

Possibly related posts:
Facebook’s next big privacy change is still coming
10 Tips for Social Media Beginners