First the odds and ends:
Here are a couple of free ebooks for your Kindle — I’m not sure how long the first offer is available, but Marilyn’s will be free until the 28th of August.
Wicked Game by Sasha White — this one is a thriller with romance and the plot sounds great.
No Bells by F.M. (Marilyn) Meredith — the 8th book in the Rocky Bluff P.D. series.
Here’s a blog post on Writing from the Peak by Aaron Michael Ritchey (“The Amazing Blessings of Being a Writer“) you might enjoy. Aaron also blogs for Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers on the 4th Thursday of the month.
Now the rant:
Those nasty scammers and cheats are everywhere on social media, not just at the other end of “unavailable” or “toll-free” phone calls.
I recently reported a bunch of scumbags on Google+ because once they found me, I was inundated with new contacts following (stalking) me and trying to engage by sending messages such as Hello” or “How are you?” All of them had photos of attractive older men with impressive jobs or backgrounds. I knew it was fishy, but the day I saw that two entirely different creeps had the same photo, I reported everyone of them that I hadn’t already blocked.
That took care of the Google+ problem, at least for now.
Then today, someone who’d requested to “Friend” me on Facebook (and I foolishly friended because the person’s profile says he/she works for Facebook) messaged me. I’m always suspiciously of anyone who starts a contact this way and usually just jump up and unfriend. But today, I’m in a “don’t mess with me” mood. I decided to see what would follow. And then I hurried to copy the messages. Here’s how it went:
Frances: hello
how are you doing today and your family?
Me: Hi Frances. Do you really work at Facebook?
Am frances kanani from the Facebook social Network Inc.. and i was authorized to send you a request by the Facebook C.E.O
Me: What request?
Frances: well, am glad to notify you on behalf of the Facebook Promo Board office that your Facebook Users Name have been selected among the 20 Lucky names in this years Facebook annual lottery promo which is aimed at saying a big thank you to all our customers who have chosen Facebook as there number 1 means of communicating with there friends and families.
your name was selected by the Facebook Random Machine among the 20 Listed Names who won the total amount of $600,000.00 United State Dollars from the Facebook Online Lottery Promo.are you ready to claim your winning
Me: I figured this was a scam, but wanted to make sure before copying your messages and passing a warning on to Facebook and my friends. You belong in jail for trying to rip nice people off.
And then I hustled into my profile and changed my password, just in case. As a matter of fact, I’m tempted to change my password every day for a while. And then I reported the account to Facebook as being a fake account.
I’m sick of this stuff. Aren’t you?
“How are you, dear?”
from someone you never heard of??????
I get those messages too & blocked. Bet out of a shot-blast of emails, they snagged some lonely person.
Good Blog.
Kay
Oh, yes, those messages always made my skin crawl, Kay. I need to go back through my Facebook friend list and see if added any of them before I caught on.
The bad part about Google+ is that they can add a person to their circles even if they’re never followed back. That feels way too much like stalking to me.
I am sick unto death of phishing and scammers, Pat! I had the same weird FB message you did, actually, ‘though this time the scammer didn’t pretend to work for FB. As you can imagine, I didn’t answer the message, and now I’m doubly glad I didn’t. I get those kinds of things in my email in-box as well. What makes me most upset is knowing that those people are preying on the most vulnerable people – people who are, perhaps, poor and desperate for money, or other people vulnerable. You’re wise to change your password and so on.
Margot, some of my (non-writing) friends decided their only defense was to abandon social media. I’m not sure I could make myself do that, but it sure is tempting sometimes.
Thanks for the warning, Pat, and for taking action. I, too, have refused a few “Friend” requests that seemed fishy, although I haven’t had your experience–yet.
I appreciate the comment, Allan. I’m tired of tiptoeing away from these thieves, hoping they’ll go away. I’m going to show and tell!
Wow, I’m glad I don’t get crap like that. A spam comment once in a great while on my blog, but I haven’t been stalked on Google+. You were right to report that Facebook person.
My first response from Facebook was to tell me the person wasn’t breaking any rules…..but that’s because they couldn’t see the message exchanges. I gave the Support division the link to this post, so we’ll see if that helps.