GREENVILLE, SC — One woman in South Carolina is warning folks about a new social media scam that makes it seems like one of your Facebook friends is reaching out to you.
WHNS reports Barbara Lynn Wilson was nearly tricked, but caught onto the scam, before she sent any money to the scammers.
Wilson says she received a Facebook message from a longtime friend that at first appeared to be legitimate.
“She said, ‘Did you hear the good news? I said, ‘No.’ She said, ‘I won the Facebook bonus prize,’ — as if Facebook had an end of the year January bonus lottery. I said, ‘No.,'” Wilson explained. “She said, ‘Your name was on it, too.'”
But Wilson says that she was suspicious when an alleged Facebook executive contacted her on the social media site, and said she’d have to pay $1,500 to receive her $100,000 prize.
Wilson realized the scammers had used her friend’s profile picture and created a new account in her friend’s name, without her realizing it.
Wilson contacted the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office to report the scam.
Deputy Michael Douglas warned folks to be careful about giving personal information out over these sites.
“What we notice about Facebook is that people tend to put too much of their personal information out there and they’ll have a friend list of people they don’t know or don’t know well,” Douglas said.
The Better Business Bureau in Greenville said Scam Tracker is a good tool to find out more about local, and national scams. And if you are the victim of a scam, you can report it to the BBB so that they can keep track of local scams.
