What did I almost fall for? A phishing scam.
They almost had me. I was on Facebook for the Creative Women of Pinnacle Peak’s page. That’s the charity I volunteer for to help victims of sex trafficking. I’ve written about the group and our focus HERE and HERE.
I’m in charge of communications and publicity for our group. I’m promoting our annual fundraiser on Facebook as well as other places. I logged into FB and saw a notification that our page was going to be taken down due to copyright infringement. It was a message that looked legit from Meta. I panicked.
How could it be that a group of less than 30 women, who have been around for 30 years could violate FB rules? We are helping the community for pete’s sake! They provided a link to file a complaint and have our account reviewed. I clicked on the link.
Up came a box asking for my name, birthdate and password. I filled out my name and birthdate. I didn’t have the password, because I was given access to the page, but didn’t set it up. Then I thought about it. Why would they need that info?
I erased the info and began looking at help pages on FB to find out if this was legit or not. The first notification that our page would be deleted was from a person named Wojtek Brawo. I clicked on this person’s account and there was no info and no posts. Only a few friends. Then I googled the name to find out what country or nationality the person was from. I found this:
Wojtek was a Syrian brown bear adopted by soldiers of the 2nd Polish Corps during World War II. As a young cub, his mother was shot by hunters, and he was found in the mountains of Iran by a young boy. The boy then sold him to a group of Polish soldiers who were in the country after being evacuated from the Soviet Union. Wikipedia
I did report this person as a scammer. Then a second notification came under a different name with the same message. I reported that one to Facebook, too.
My husband has been close to falling for phishing scams. He gets texts that a package is arriving but he needs to click to update information. I tell him it’s a scam and tease him about not realizing it’s phishing.
Now I almost fell for one! In defense of myself, the scammers are getting better and better. Be careful and if something doesn’t feel right, don’t click. Don’t provide any personal information online!
What phishing scams have you seen in your inbox, texts or online?
FYI, if you missed my post Friday, please take a look HERE. I posted new hawk photos. I accidentally scheduled it for the wrong day. Corrected my mistake, but it didn’t appear in Reader.
