Is this a facebook scam?

[Craig234]

I have an e-mail from a person I haven't heard of saying they are new to facebook and sent a friend request.

The links to confirm friend look real, but when I search for the person on facebook, they're not found.

Googling the name and facebook finds nothing as well, instead of any web sites mentioning this name as part of a scam.

 

[Malogeek]

You can simply confirm any friend requests in Facebook rather than relying on an email which is easily faked.

 

[sandorski]

Possibly some kind of Phishing scam. Might be a fake Facebook website that would require you to Login, thus capturing your real fb Login data.

 

[Craig234]

You can simply confirm any friend requests in Facebook rather than relying on an email which is easily faked.

I don't see them in the list of requests on facebook.

Suggesting that either the request is somehow faked or that they were removed from facebook?

 

[Craig234]

Possibly some kind of Phishing scam. Might be a fake Facebook website that would require you to Login, thus capturing your real fb Login data.

That's what I suspected, but since the link seems to go to facebook.com, it's unclear how they'd phish.

Usually it goes to some phony website.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I've seen weird stuff like that too with papal scams. Got a legit donation for a site I run which has a donate button. Later on I get an email that looks to come from Paypal tech support and it was all personalized, like "hi this is so and so from Paypal support, the person who donated to you wants to get a refund, if you can kindly login to the paypal site and go do that". Something to that extent. I found it odd in that I'm pretty sure a refund request would be an automated email, I can't imagine them processing and typing up a message like that manually each time. I logged in to my Paypal and expected that I'd see some kind of notice, but nothing. So I emailed Paypal about it and they said it was a scam.

Really not sure what that scam would actually do. If I did initiate a refund, the person who donated would get the money, and probably wonder why, but not think much of it, and move on. I presume the scammers must be doing something similar to how FB and Google can track you, so maybe by me logging into Paypal they can somehow get my credentials.

 

[Craig234]

I've seen weird stuff like that too with papal scams. Got a legit donation for a site I run which has a donate button. Later on I get an email that looks to come from Paypal tech support and it was all personalized, like "hi this is so and so from Paypal support, the person who donated to you wants to get a refund, if you can kindly login to the paypal site and go do that". Something to that extent. I found it odd in that I'm pretty sure a refund request would be an automated email, I can't imagine them processing and typing up a message like that manually each time. I logged in to my Paypal and expected that I'd see some kind of notice, but nothing. So I emailed Paypal about it and they said it was a scam.

Really not sure what that scam would actually do. If I did initiate a refund, the person who donated would get the money, and probably wonder why, but not think much of it, and move on. I presume the scammers must be doing something similar to how FB and Google can track you, so maybe by me logging into Paypal they can somehow get my credentials.

My guess for yours would be that the same scammers did the donation - or how would they know about it - and that the link for you to refund it was a link to a phishing site.

 

[Red Squirrel]

My guess for yours would be that the same scammers did the donation - or how would they know about it - and that the link for you to refund it was a link to a phishing site.

That's the weird thing, there was no link, it just told me to go to paypal.com to go do a refund. That's the part I found odd, because normally they'd try to trick you into going to a link.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

That's the weird thing, there was no link, it just told me to go to paypal.com to go do a refund. That's the part I found odd, because normally they'd try to trick you into going to a link.

Maybe they hoped you'd send back money, after which they'd simply cancel their payment still (if that is possible), thus doubling their money. But that would only be interesting for them in the first place if it concerned a reasonably large amount or if they use a bot to do it to tons of donating sites.
And it would of course require them to be able to cancel the payment after giving you ample time to refund them.

If you already accepted all the donations the only way for them to get their money back is to request a refund (https://www.paypal.com/us/selfhelp/article/faq637). Which involves sending an email to you:
https://www.paypal.com/us/selfhelp/article/how-do-i-request-a-refund-faq406

So a bit weird. Have a friend do a donation, accept it, and then request a refund to see whether or not you get a notification.

 

[zinfamous]

I have an e-mail from a person I haven't heard of saying they are new to facebook and sent a friend request.

you really only need this one clue.

 

[pete6032]

If you get a friend request from a phony person, Facebook usually deletes the phony person pretty fast. If you don't respond to the friend request immediately, and it is a phony person and Facebook has deleted them, you won't see anything about it when you log into Facebook.

 

[Craig234]

you really only need this one clue.

Not to understand the scam. What do they get if I added them and then they're deleted? Why do it?

 

[dud]

If you have to ask ...

 

[Craig234]

If you have to ask ...

Is your post a phishing scam? Oh wait since I asked, it is.

 

[RLGL]

OP, you are another one sucked into the stupidity of Facebook

 

[Thebobo]

OP, you are another one sucked into the stupidity of Facebook

I enjoy it, it's allowed me to make contact with friends I haven't heard from in years. It's not perfect it has its issues just like any social media site.

So what exactly is so stupid about facebook? Or is just your general dislike of any social media?

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

I enjoy it, it's allowed me to make contact with friends I haven't heard from in years. It's not perfect it has its issues just like any social media site.

So what exactly is so stupid about facebook? Or is just your general dislike of any social media?

FB is a scam because it takes all of your information and profits from it while only returning a highly structured form of communication that also seeks information from everyone you know.

 

[Thebobo]

FB is a scam because it takes all of your information and profits from it while only returning a highly structured form of communication that also seeks information from everyone you know.

I provide them with my information and they provide me what all that FB offers. That's how we pay for their services and I'm fine with that. For now it's a lot of fun, I've learned a lot from all the different groups I joined up with and met some new and old friends.

 

[snoopy7548]

Maybe they want to give you some Marriott points...

 

[Red Squirrel]

FB is a scam because it takes all of your information and profits from it while only returning a highly structured form of communication that also seeks information from everyone you know.

The issue is, it does that regardless. FB can track you even outside of it's own website. It is a real issue and needs to be fixed at the browser level. Browsers leak too much information because of all the scripting crap these days. If you don't have an account, they create a shadow profile of you. They even know how you look like because your parents etc may have posted family pictures and you're in them. That's probably why they ask for ID, they'll do face recognition to match/confirm with the info they have.

Google+ does that too. When it first came out I decided to try it for fun, and I already had friends in my friends list despite it being a brand new account. It was all people I had worked with who were in my Office Communicator. So I presume Google and Microsoft may have been exchanging info there.

I kind of have a love/hate thing with FB. One one hand it's a decent platform to share stuff with friends/family and keep up with people that I normally don't really talk to, on the other hand, all the spy stuff is just ridiculous and I should probably be blocking all their IPs at my firewall and abandoning my account.

 

[Thebobo]

My picture if anyone cared is already out on the webs including the info on my family since they're all on facebook. Is there something evil that facebook is doing with my data?

 

[Craig234]

OP, you are another one sucked into the stupidity of Facebook

What? I barely touch it. What's your problem?

 

[Perknose]

My picture if anyone cared is already out on the webs including the info on my family since they're all on facebook. Is there something evil that facebook is doing with my data?

Senior Facebook staff secretly pleasure themselves to the pics of the better looking members. Fortunately, you and I need not worry about this.

 

[RLGL]

So what exactly is so stupid about facebook? Or is just your general dislike of any social media?

General Waste of time, way too many adds, Friending another way to get keep your face glued to the screen. No privacy, I think Equafax does a better job. I had an account years ago. When I saw what some people connected to my account posted, I no longer associated with them after that and closed the account.

 

[Craig234]

Senior Facebook staff secretly pleasure themselves to the pics of the better looking members. Fortunately, you and I need not worry about this.

You get used to it.

In case you were curious.