It was the last weekend
of March and I had not visited my facebook because I was actually taking time
off the internet to finish my new book on How to bounce back from life’s
setback which was for launch on Amazon Kindle. When I checked my email, I
discovered that I had two friend requests from two people who had the same name
and profile photos which were actually the picture of a popular Pentecostal
preacher and entrepreneur. I felt it was a coincidence in any case.
And on Monday morning, I
visited facebook and accepted the two requests plus a host of others. First I
was curious but in order to also have more evidence and materials for my
research work on 111 smart ways to stay safe on facebook and whatsapp, detectand identify liars, spy and identity thieves, I followed my instinct. And guess
what, I was right that I was adding a scammer to my friendship.
Once I added the two,
they sent me a great and inspiring religious words that could make anyone see
them as being kind, humane, pastoral, Bhuda-ic, Christ-like and
wealth-promising, First they showered and pronounced blessings of God on my
person and later sent me a letter promising me blessings of God if I send money
to a little boy who had brain tumor. They sent bank details where I will send
the money and then contact them after I had sent the money to the boy. Two
facebook accounts with same profile pictures, same name with same story. Got
interesting.
I “was ready” to send
the money but requested for their phone numbers separately still. But they told
me that they do not give their phone numbers because of their position and that
God asked them to let me know of the blessings that await me once I can send
the money as soon as possible. I asked them to kindly allow me send the money
to the Church so the Church can then forward the money to the boy whom I was
compassionate to help. They also refused. These two “friends” uses different
bank accounts from different banks and their contact is only facebook, no phone
number, address or email. Wonderful!
Wrong moves:
They were using the same
picture that I was already familiar with which belongs to a Pastor and
Entrepreneur. So they were on a wrong path to nothingness.
To this day, once I told
them that their scam was not a very convincing one and that they needed to
change their lives to get meaningful work, they never contacted me again nor
did they delete me from their friendship. I was to leared that people are
falling for this without detecting the lies from this scam which has been going
on and that they don’t know what to do as people are falling for this.
Lessons:
Compassion is very good,
but you need to do it wisely and know the right source. Facebook is a great
platform, but there are a lot of Big brothers who pose as friends but are
actually thieves. You need knowledge to handle facebook and social media. Your
priority when you sign up for facebook or add or accept a friendship on
facebook is to know smart ways to stay safe on facebook and whatsapp, detect
and identify liars, spy and identity thieves.
Lives and Properties Being Lost To Social
Media:
Let me state here that a
lot of lives are being lost through friendships on facebook or other social
media, girls are being trafficked, people’s identify are being stolen daily and
you need to know what to post or not to post on facebook as well as learn how
to identify those who are genuine friends.
You may not understand the phenomenal number of fake accounts on facebook. But let me tell you this; as at 2012, Facebook revealed that fake or Bogus Facebook accounts were between 5 to 6 percent of all accounts, This put the fakes between 40 to 50 million. This is a high risk. What about the number today?
The accounts on facebook are sometimes operated by both human and software accounts. This is not the making of facebook itself as they keep patching and bringing the best security on facebook
You have to understand that there are two types of Fake Accounts. You have Human and Software generated Accounts. The software account is a bot operated remotely via software while the human account is actually a sock puppet account. Sock puppet account is a false account operated by human being pretending to be someone or something they are not.
Whether you are just starting to use smartphones or facebook or whatsapp or instagram etc, you need to know how to be safe and what you should do or not do when you are on these platforms.
I will recommend that you read 111 smart ways to stay safe on facebook and whatsapp, detect and identify liars, spy and identity thieves.
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