Social Networks Are Becoming Breeding Grounds For Scam

As the Social Media phenomenon increase, people all around the world have found ways to stay connected with friends, family and co-workers.

As users widen their social presence on Myspace, Facebook and LinkedIn, they need to be aware that scammers also have shifted their focus to social media sites as the next hot locations to find their next target, according to this article.

“Many [criminals] have now moved to computer networks because that’s where the victims have moved and, therefore, the opportunities,” said Shawn Henry, assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Investigations unit. – [Businessweek]

Just as with anything that has become popular in mainstream you have to watch out for the new age scammers who are always looking for a way in to make money with new scams.

The Nigerian Scam

Over the past years Craigslist has been bombarded with Nigerian Scams of pretending to either give money, ask for suspicious transfers or any other method instead of the traditional cash/credit card transaction.

Per Craiglists.

Recognizing scams [Craiglist]

Most scams involve one or more of the following:

  • inquiry from someone far away, often in another country
  • Western Union, Money Gram, cashier’s check, money order, shipping, escrow service, or a “guarantee”
  • inability or refusal to meet face-to-face before consumating transaction
Not only in the craigslist market do these scammers breed, we have been noticing an increase in e-mail fraud aswell.  The main purposes of these scams is to persuade and trick people into giving money to the scam artists in reference to sympathy or desire.  More information can be found here [Nigerian Scam] 
The New Target – Social Networks
Now the same theme of the Nigerian Scams has evolved over to Social Networks. 
The structure fro this new scam is that scamsters log on as Social Network friends and trick users into thinking they are their real life friends who in reality is really not.  This time around its not about helping transferring millions of dollars into bank accounts, the main objective is implied trust and using that trust to gain your money in suspecting your “friend” is in dire need of money now.  Once again don’t fall for these tricks
Last year the total amount of money reported lost through Internet crime in the U.S. rose 21%, to a record $239 million, according to those agencies.

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