10 Facebook Scams To Watch Out For

Intro

Facebook Views

My Total Facebook Views

Bragging about how many Facebook friends you have isn't enough. Now you need to show everyone how many views your profile has drawn. Exhibitionists are asked to fill out a quick survey and grant the app permission to access profile information before spreading malware into your account. And just like every other survey scam, you're putting commission money into the pocket's of a con artist.

Diet

Miracle Acai Berry Diet

A Facebook-sponsored weight loss product? That should already set off an alarm. This spam link opens a fake news page that promotes a phony diet drink, showcasing testimonials about the product's success and co-signs from top media outlets like ABC, CNN, and USA Today. The scam appears in messages, wall posts, and even Facebook chats. We recommend you hit GNC's website and check out a real selection of diet supplements. Or cop a shake weight.

Stalker

See Who Viewed Your Profile

Those who enjoyed keeping tabs on their MySpace stalkers friends, or desperate dudes looking to see which girls are peeping their page might get suckered into this one. But any hardcore user would know that it's against Facebook's privacy policy to find out who's been looking at your profile.

Grant Scam

Facebook Grant Award

Beware of any FB messages in your inbox that state you won a cash prize as part of the Facebook Grant Award. The electronic message instructs users to collect their prize by clicking on the provided link, which directs them to a fake website that tricks them into sending money and providing personal information to hackers. Reference the image above. Use your smarts. If Mark Zuckerberg and crew announced a Grant Award, wouldn't you have heard about it on a credible news site? Exactly.

Man Kills Girlfriend

Young Man Killed His Girlfriend

Though many of us resort to our profile page for the latest news, there's something dodgy about a friend promoting their down-the-street neighbor killing his girlfriend on Facebook, don't ya think? Clicking on the bogus news brief sends similar spam messages to the user's friends, while luring users onto a set of survey scams. Smarten up, man.

Italian School Teacher

Italian School Teacher Undressing

Every guy's natural instinct would be to click on a video that shows a hot teacher stripping in class. The fake YouTube video reads in Italian "Professoressa SP0RCACCIONA si SP0GLIA nei banchi scuola per scommessa , VIDEO DA NON PERDERE" (Translation: Dirty teacher undresses between the school desks. Video not to be missed.). Once users click, they're exposed to the threat of having their pages hijacked with harmful links, also known as clickjacking. You'd be much better off hitting up one of the free streaming porn sites. Just sayin'.

Southwest Flights

Southwest Free Flights

With Spring Break right around the corner, what college student doesn't want a complimentary trip to Cancun? As good as it sounds, werecommend you resist the temptation to click links offering free flights on Southwest Airlines. Anyone that grants this application access will find the same post (with different text) appear on their follower's walls. Best way to avoid this scam is by deleting the comment from your wall and instruct others to do the same. Or else you'll have to do it the hard way by going through your privacy settings.

First Status

First Status Scam

Preying on the nosy nature of Facebook users, this scam tricks people into believe that they could see their friends first-ever status update. Spam experts immediately noticed a couple of red flags with the service that was growing in popularity. They saw that most user updates were uniformly made and that the dates were either fake (i.e. 10/97/2009), or, even more deceiving, a user's sign-up date. They also found that the URLs were shortened using a service like Bit.ly or TinyURL, and led to a Facebook application scam.

Farmville

FarmVille Scams

Facebook gamers are suckers for in-game add-on items. But if you're a hardcore FarmVille follower, be aware of the several rogue applications making its way onto Facebook news feeds. A couple floating around are the English Stars Sheep, Kung Fu Duck, and Visit England scams. Here's a heads up: Hover your mouse over any of the links, if they point to appliations or Facebook pages not related to the FarmVille game, it's scam.

Sex Tapes

Celebrity Sex Tapes

Celebrity sex tape scams have been floating around Facebook since the network was created. Back When Charlie Sheen was burning through his hot streak earlier this year, there was a scam that tricked users into clicking what they thought was a link to a video with Charlie and porn-star girlfriend Bree Olsen. Another one popped up this past September that told users to click an image of Nicki Minaj to see a video "her boyfriend gave this tape to a BBC Reporter. Watch it live before it is taken down by her lawyers.” Unsurprisingly, the link takes you to survey. Here's a tip: Keep the thirst on check and avoid any sex-related offers on Facebook.