KIRSTY JOHNSTON
Facebook scammers have reached another rung on the rip-off ladder, now hijacking the network's live chat system to cheat users out of cash.
Experts say the con artists are getting more confident with every success and will learn details about the person whose profile they have hacked in order to appear more convincing.
A Hamilton woman recently lost $500 to the ploy, after "her friend" appeared on Facebook chat claiming she had been mugged in Manila and needed funds to fly home.
"I believed every minute of it," Claire Spring said. "I rushed around panicked to send the money and it wasn't until my daughter came home and asked if I'd checked if it was really my friend that I began to think, but by then it was too late."
Her friend Julie, who is now concerned for her privacy and didn't want her last name used, said she still felt guilty about what happened, although it wasn't her fault.
"It's so scary. How they got into my account is way beyond me." Another friend, Paul Evans-McLeod, was also nearly taken in by the scam, but recovered enough to ask some security questions. He then raised the alarm, emailing Julie and then his friends with a copy of the conversation to help them avoid the trap.
"It was just the last couple of comments that raised my suspicions," Evans-McLeod said.
"They were saying `go now', `go quick' and I thought it wasn't the way Julie would have spoken to me."
Netsafe executive director Martin Cocker said that reaction was completely natural.
"Because it's contact through a real-time system people are much more likely to fall for it," he said.
Cocker said Facebook users needed to ensure they had strong passwords, and be aware, because once scammers hacked into a profile they could use that information to fool others.
"Scammers are investing more and more time in higher return scams so they will make the effort of chatting with you because it pays off." Cocker said Facebook was a regular target.
"It's a natural evolution on the hacking on the email account, except they can learn a lot more about you."
Both Spring and Julie reported the scam to police and the FBI online scam reporting system.
A police spokesman said the reality was that if people sent money to an unknown person overseas and it turned out to be a scam there was little that could be done to get the money back.
If you believe you have been the victim of a scam you can report it to the online reporting tool The Orb run by Netsafe.
- © Fairfax NZ News
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