Scams on Social Media
The ways scammers will try to get your personal information – mainly passwords
Scams on social media – Facebook and other platforms are common.
The simplest way is they will ask you for your password – and many people will just give it to them
Here are some of the ways they will do this:
Pretend to be someone of authority who cares about your safety (a bank, an organisation you trust)
Fake password reset messages – in social media or email. You will receive a message – something like …
“There have been attempts to login to your account, we have stopped them. Please login and check your account details”
A link will be provided to a fake website, but with a name similar to that of a bank or real company
Message offering you something that you want – or want see.
XXXX-Cola. Or it could be food.
“It’s our birthday and we are giving away a bottle of your favourite drink to the first 500 people to register with us”.
“We have a stock that was slightly damaged in transit, first 100 people to register can claim 12 bottles”
A link will be provided that looks just like a Facebook sign-in page (or Instagram, Tiktok, etc.) – and you are just giving them your details.
Hot girls video! (pornography)
You will see a picture of a video, as you click it will require you to sign in to see the video (except it is a false link just like the previous example)
This is very common – videos in fake Facebook accounts – there many fake accounts in English, Khmer, Thai
A lot of these messages will be in English – which makes it harder for you to understand which is genuine.
They know that your English may not be good, it makes it easier for them.
Beware of anything that requires you to login again
… when you have already logged in.
Check the link/url – make sure it is really from the company you think.
If you login on one of these fake sites – they will have your username or email address and password.
Signs that they have got your password – or access to an account
You cannot login to your account – it was ok last time you tried.
Your friends receive weird messages from your account:
“Hello <your name>, I am sorry to trouble you but I need your help. I am in Siem Reap. Last night someone stole my phone and money. I cannot get home without some money. Can you send me $20 to this account. It’s not the same as normal, because of the phone problem I have had to ask someone to receive money for me. Thank you so much for helping me.
You may receive an email saying something like
“Hello, today is not your lucky day. We have been watching you. We have seen the websites that you have been looking at. If you don’t want us telling your friends and family, pay us some money …..”
It will not be a lot, but once you have paid, they will want more. They can do this without having your account name/password – this is just bluff
Your computer/laptop starts to run really slowly. Maybe a trojan has been installed, because of some website you looked at.
There are many scams on social media. It will not stop you from using it, just be mindful that they exist.
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