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Is Facebook a Paradise for Scammers? http://ow.ly/zZtv facebook socialnetworking scams technology news

When scams are taken seriously (seriously no lie!) #socialmediafail

As some readers may have noticed, I seem to have a little trend going on in my posts. Have you noticed?

Well I didn't but John Lai did and simply put, I seem to talk about all the Social Media faux pas that we've all, at one point or another come across recently or will in the near future.

So for that reason, I'll continue in this direction -  till I run out of things to talk about, which I highly doubt. We recently sent out to Twitter asking our readers to link us to Social Media Fail moments, so if you come across one or two (or even more) let us know and I may write about it.

This post, falls under social media fail moments between friends - I will also cover social media etiquette fail (between friends) as @jesscann suggested, but for today's post I'll stick to this lovely concept of those online scams.

I'm sure you know which ones I'm talking about, the ones where you get an email or an @ reply by some random person who said "Do you want to make a quick buck?" "Whiten your teeth" "Find singles" etc. And of course, there are the ones which hack your Twitter account and start sending direct messages to all your friends about the same thing - I've had that happen to me as well. I'm sure at some point so have you - I'd be hard pressed to find someone who hasn't received those random messages.

But what happens when someone you know takes it seriously? And one of your friends actually believes it - and bombards everybody they know about this "great" pyramid scheme that they've found and that if you join too, you'll all end up marvelously rich and happy that you don't need anything else. (sorry but for me that spot is taken on Twitter by Shelly Ryan - cute girl, but she didn't look like she knew how to make money except by looking pretty).

Well it does happen...

This was sent through a Facebook account - although its is not impossible to hack one or create a fake one for these reasons,you can send a message to one person, its hard to send a mass one if you're not friends unless you are an administrator of a fan or group page. So "Barb" in this photo actually sent this out to acquintances - tell me something Barb how is it that I have nothing to lose from joining your scheme? Especially since you claim is "free" - as far as I know, you have to spend money to make money? (unless you win the lotto or someone gives it to you).  What I want to know is if she really did believe that the scheme actually works or that people will actually join her profiting from this 'free' money.

This concept really reminds me of the book "How to lose friends and make enemies" - only that book was about climbing the corporate ladder.  Scams like these are bad enough if it comes from fake bots and spam messages - but when its your friends, how do you stay friends with someone like that? What a way to kill the "social" part of social media. 

But wait, there is a bright side to this post. Just when you thought all hope was lost, someone reaches out to give that person another chance...

Oh Chase - you stole the words from my mouth. "What ever happened to getting to know the person first?" Social Media #101 if you don't know the person, getting to know them first is pinnacle in showing that you listen, you're real, genuine and you care about what they have to say too. Its all about the conversation, its not one way - its two way (heck even more than that sometimes!). So if you ever come across someone you know who sends you one of them, let them know - its not real and they're just being played for a fool. (Talk about an awkward confrontation right there!)

I know that at times Social Media can be scary - I mean you're talking to random people, you're putting yourself (the real you) out there for everyone to get to know - don't break the ice with a mass message especially about something that is fake. That is what some people say is... setting yourself up for failure.

Till next time!

Courtney

Exposing Facebook and MySpace Scams

"Scamville" is a great series of articles, featured on TechCrunch.com, that I've been following recently. It exposes how developers are making tens of thousands of dollars every day off of Facebook and MySpace games such as FarmVille. Surprisingly, it has already lead to numerous industry changes in the way these games work and might have even gotten one CEO the boot.

There are 9 articles in the series, below are the links to them. This is an excerpt from the first article. Enjoy.

There can be only one reason Facebook and MySpace turn a blind eye to user protection – they’re getting such a huge cut of revenue back from these developers in advertising. If they turn off the spigot, they hurt themselves.

Zynga may be spending $50 million a year on Facebook advertising alone, fueled partially by lead gen scams. Wonder how Facebook got to profitability way ahead of schedule? It was a surge in this kind of advertising. The money looks clean...

1. Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem Of Hell
2. Two Companies That Said No To Social Media Scams
3. How To Spam Facebook Like A Pro: An Insider’s Confession
4. Scamville: Zynga Says 1/3 Of Revenue Comes From Lead Gen And Other Offers
5. Zynga Takes Steps To Remove Scams From Games
6. RockYou Joins The No Scams Parade. But What’s Facebook Up To?
7. MySpace Says Zero Tolerance For App Scams, Changes Terms Of Use
8. Tragedy Of The Social Gaming Commons: A Blueprint For Change
9. Offerpal Tries Out A New CEO. Shukla, Queen Of Scams, Is Out.

Who is RainSoft?

And why did they leave an empty bottle attached to my garage door?

Accompanied with a questionnaire and instructions to leave a sample of your tap water for a "free analysis" from said company.

Wow, what a public service......oh wait, their propaganda says, in fine print :

NOT AFFILIATED WITH CITY HEALTH OR WATER DEPARTMENT

No kidding, they are a public business located in Mississauga.  What they are doing in our neck of the woods is the real question.

"Your response may result in a complimentary presentation of water treatment equipment"  

Oh boy, oh boy a free sales pitch, sign me up!

I despise all junk mail and door to door soliciting but found this one especially offensive.
Resorting to the physical equivalent of a SPAM message by attaching something to my garage door, their business practices are immediately suspect.

Their questionnaire collects information irrelevant to the assessment of water quality.  Why would they need to know the following questions:

- are you working?
- number of people in your family
- are you a homeowner

Then they ask for your full contact details and signature.

I sure hope no one is stupid enough to hand over their personal info so quickly to an unknown company, one that has made no assurances of protecting your personal information in any way.

Not only that they then disclose when they will be picking up your questionnaire, which is no doubt the same for your entire neighborhood, now anyone could swing by and pickup your questionnaire.   Morons.

It's no surprise that when I typed "rainsoft" into Google I found some negative reviews:

http://www.pissedconsumer.com/consumer-reviews/other/rainsoft-a-scam-20080125111688.html

If you're in the market for a water purification system I'm sure you will do your research as they are pricey ($5-$9K) and obviously not an impulse purchase.  Call a local distributor and not one that resorts to these tacky gimmicks.

My advise, take the bag off the garage door and place it right into your blue bin, there's no place for "RainSoft" in your house.

TechCruch Report: Scams Proliferate on Social Networking Sites

HungryPeople applauds Michael Arrington's expose on the scams being proliferated by certain game developers and ad networks on social networking sites esp. Facebook. We hope Facebook clean up these scammers. We LOVE Facebook and wouldn't want to see its image tarnished by unethical practices of a few shenanigans.

Though ultimately Facebook has to earn money in order to keep serving the millions of people who enjoy the “social experience” it delivers – we want safeguards to be in place that we are not being duped into giving our personal information online without our permission or knowledge. Facebook is a great tool on the web but if these scams continue – one day, a better social networking site will come and give it a run for its money.   

Google? Competition please.

Here are the articles connected with this expose:

Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem Of Hell

Two Companies That Said No To Social Media Scams

How To Spam Facebook Like A Pro: An Insider's Confession

New blog post: About ghouls, rapscallions and varmints

With apologies to ‘the vanishing pumpkin’ and kids’ book author Tony Johnston.

  The Friday blog on a cell phone short code platform looking for investors has attracted a fair amount of attention. It appears to be an alleged pyramid scheme built around a SMS short code platform.

  And then last night, while I was reading a book to my youngest daughter, it dawned on me that the almost all the characters in the book bear some similarity to the characters in the short code platform fairy tale.

  The story line is straight forward – it’s about a 700-year old woman and the 800-year old man (investors) and their search for a missing pumpkin (the R250k capital investment) on 31 October (Halloween).

  They meet Gert along the way in various disguises. Firstly, he is the ghoul, then a rapscallion and finally a varmint. The 800-year old man ‘does a trick’ on each of the characters in an attempt to find the missing pumpkin, but to no avail. Finally the group come across a 900-year old wizard (possibly a local regulator, either the FAIS Ombud or the FSB), who has the pumpkin, but it has already been converted into a candle-lit jack ‘o lantern.

  But where is the capital (the contents of the pumpkin), which the old couple wanted to convert into a pumpkin? Well, the wizard has carved it out and no doubt the curators have taken their share of the spoils for the work that they did, in carving out the innards.  Of course the old man and women are more than happy to share in some of the pumpkin, not realising that the entire pumpkin belonged to them in the first place.

  Back to the original short code platform fairy tale. What is strange is that while I copied the FSB on the email I sent back to the original sender, I have yet to receive an acknowledgment of receipt, let alone any attempt at action. In the mean time our friend Gert aka ghoul, rapscallion or varmint, could be making hay, fleecing gullible investors of any amount of hard-earned capital. What I did get though, is the start of an investigation by the cell phone network operator, who does take these types of issues rather more seriously, and has the staff to do so.

  What irritated me more though was that someone has sold my details to an unscrupulous buyer. There was no due diligence done by the seller and if there was, what would they have found? But I do wonder whether any of my human rights, and specifically my right to privacy, have been violated, and whether I can sue. But who would I sue, the alleged pyramid scheme operator – who has probably disappeared into the deep jungle, or the seller of my data?  Who would probably deny having sold my information, in the first place?

   Happy Halloween to those couples who don’t believe in fairy tales and to the ghouls, rapscallions and varmints out there, why not apply your minds to do some good and build wealth in your community and not attempt to destroy people’s lives.

7 Security Tips: Be the Phish That Got Away

Every once in a while your email spam filter lets an email slip by it and make it into the mail box that could be proclaiming anything from a bank asking its customer to “verify an account” to the Spanish lottery commission congratulating you on “winning the lottery”.

This kind of attack aims to pull a slight of hand trick on web users and fooling them into providing their private information to the attacker. In a phishing attack, the aim is to bait the user into believing that the email and website they are getting redirected to are legitimate. The scheme collapses once the user doesn’t take the bait.

To read the entire article visit blog.thoughtpick.com

things aren't always what they appear to be at first glance.

Intriguing isn't it?

Is it the moon ? Is it a ring ? Is it moving ? Is it huge/small ? Is it watching?
Is it a mug or glasses filling with coffee ?

This picture is a white and black contrast of a coffee glass that I have bought at a convenient store. I have put it on the sidewalk and take the shot. I have used Picasa to add more shadow in it to emphasis the contrast and erase almost everything of the object.

It's maybe my first post-modernism picture.
The object is central to the picture perfectly integrated
but so strangely unidentifiable and so familiar by it's shape.

Ah, the venality never sleeps.

2008 brought the subprime mortgage scam and 2009 brings us the loan modification scam!

Consumers should especially be wary of companies charging upfront fees or touting guarantees. The Illinois attorney general says that her office has yet to see any such company operate within the boundaries of state law.

Deception seems to be at the heart of the business model. Internal e-mails from an Anaheim-based firm sued in July by the Federal Trade Commission and the states of California and Missouri reveal a boiler-room sales operation where management motivated its "counselors" with commissions and "Rolex races."

When the company's operations manager wrote that the firm ought to inform clients that it couldn't stop foreclosure, a sales manager, Feisal Cortez, replied: "If we say 'WE DO NOT STOP FORECLOSURE' we are going to lose 75% of our business. If they implement this verbage (sic) in customer service … excuse my language but WE'RE FUCKED!"

Internet Scammers Leap on Patrick Swayze's Death