For Facebook Admins: Your Account Can Be Easily Hacked!
I almost got my Facebook Page hacked today. Before I go into details, let me firstly advice you to ensure all security levels of your page and personal Facebook is the highest. Use all level security stages and be be careful of the business proposals your receive from unknown Facebook users.
I have over 46,000 Facebook page Fans with lots of daily posts. Though the page only occasionally use Facebook ads.
So I was contacted by this user- Muhammad Arif, claiming to be a representative of an online company into Facebook advertising.
Usually when I receive messages from unknown people, what I do first is to check their profile. Most of the fictitious messages I received are from users who are either looking too beautiful, handsome or displaying so much affluence. A lot of time they have few Facebook friends, while most others don't have any friends to display.
Just like most of them, I block them once I have been able to prove beyond any doubts that they are scammers, just like this Arif.
This is how he approached me;
You can't see his photo because I have blocked him
Who doesn't like good business? But while it is good to like good business, always carry your "senses" along with you, there are too many scammers on the internet. But its always good to give anything a trial, as long as it is positive and would bring money. But always remember- Use your brain! Internet scammers stops at nothing!
And so I calculated $1000 weekly, that is a huge sum of money! Over N400k every week. I know its hard to believe, but can happen in online businesses, especially ads and data gathering.
Well, I was interested!
Who wont be? I was suspicious, but I was also aware that I had all-level security for my accounts. I was also conscious of the fact that scammers keep evolving as apps developers keeps developing high level security for their apps, so I didn't let off my guard.
One of the things I noticed that was different in this scammer and others I have met is his construction of sentences, unlike most other scammers whose written sentence are usually very poor or using automated sentences, this one writes well.
I wanted to use a high level security e-mail, but when I did not receive the message, I used my g-mail. As at this time I wasn't still sure if it was a genuine business or not. I tried reading a few things online, but nothing pointed to scam
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I was becoming hopeful, I felt I should have lost my account already by now, but I didn't lose the account. I thought if I appealed to his conscience, he might backoff and so I reminded him a Facebook policy on account security
These scammers! He assured me that he was aware of Facebook standard policy and we continued, I was a bit relaxed but not totally.
Up to this point, they haven't had access to my account yet, so he kept pushing his luck and I was almost falling for it.
Thanks to Facebook third party linking, I had linked my Instagram page to the Facebook page account this is what saved the day, but I could have just removed the link and lost my 46k Facebook page.
I was worried what could happen if I was being spammed, but they say one should always take a risk while doing business, but some risks have costed some business people even their lives, I know all I could be losing will be my Facebook page which has almost 46k+ followers
So I took my chances but Instagram account that was linked to my Facebook page saved the day! I did as he advised; I went to my Whatsapp and added the number. The first thing I noticed was that there was no profile photo, all professional businesses should have a logo, or at least the photo of the representative that you would be talking to. I didn't see any of these but I ignored.
This time around I didn't play along, there must be a reason why Facebook didn't grant access when my Instagram was connected. I had a hunch that if I disconnected my Instagram I would lose my account.
The hunch paid off!
And I decided to check online "How to use Facebook Business for Scam" And that was the eye-opener, I saw several articles written on how the Facebook app is being used to scam page owners, some even lose lots of money in advertising, some lose their pages that already had several thousands of followers.
So far Facebook have not been able to do anything about this scam, once they take over your account, that is it, you lost the page.
Read this thread; fb business manager has a loop poll, hackers are using to stoke ownership of big pages
Watch; Stolen 160K Facebook Page Rental Scam + FB Business Manager + Instant Articles Scam
Also watch; How to Recover a Hacked Facebook Business Page Account
I had to do this write-up so you won't be scammed, not many people were as lucky as I was. Facebook Business manager is being used for scamming, be ware!
If you have ever received any of this kind of message, take to your heels and run, its scam!
Share this with other Facebook admins so they don't get scammed.
This is revealing, thanks for the information
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