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Facebook Security Alert: Fake Facebook Email Asking Users for Phone Number

November 3, 2011 by Sue Surdam | Artizon Digital 1 Comment

Facebook security alert: Fake Facebook email asking users to submit their phone number to “Improve User Experience.” The Unofficial Guide to Facebook Privacy and Security posted the alert this morning:

A number of people have reported receiving emails from the ‘Facebook User Operations Team’. There are several reasons why most people will spot this as fake, (which Facebook has verbally confirmed) but here is an example kindly sent in to us:

Fake Facebook Email Notification

The same email has been sent from different fb.com accounts… Never assume that the owner of an email address is the one responsible for sending fraudulent emails. Millions of email accounts are compromised and then sometimes used to send unsolicited emails.

Anyone who gives their phone number may be charged for unsolicited texts and phone calls. The best course of action if a phone number has been given, is to contact the local fraud office for advice.

How to Protect Yourself from Fraudulent Emails

Keep in mind that these emails can look very “official” and often contain :

  • Notifications about friend requests, messages, events, photos, and videos
  • False accusations that you are abusing the site
  • Warnings that something will happen to your account if you don’t update it or take another immediate action
  • Requests to update or provide personal information

Facebook recommends:

Don’t click on links or open attachments in suspicious emails. If the email looks weird, don’t trust it, and delete it from your inbox immediately.

What makes an email suspicious? Use the following guidelines to identify a suspicious email:

  • Be suspicious of any email or message that contains an urgent request or asks you to update your information or provide new information.
  • Be suspicious of emails or messages that contain misspellings or use bad grammar.
  • Be suspicious of emails representing Facebook with a fb.com email address. General practice for Facebook is to use facebookmail.com as the email address.
  • Be suspicious of any email that requests telephone contact. Facebook only communicates through email.
  • Be suspicious of any email that contains a password as an attachment. Facebook never sends passwords in that manner.

You can submit a report about an email to Facebook through this link – Fake Email Notification Form.

Sue Surdam | Artizon Digital | WordPress Specialist and Social Media Solutions | 503-577-1035
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Filed Under: Facebook, News

Comments

  1. Sue Surdam | Artizon Digital says

    April 7, 2012 at 11:17 am

    Wow, this was worse than a fraudulent email, a pop-up appeared in Rick’s Facebook personal Timeline was asking him for credit card information to “secure” his account. It covered his status update so he couldn’t post. We decided it was a scam specific to his computer as logging from mine didn’t produce the pop-up. We finally got rid of it by clearing everything from his browsers (he uses IE and Firefox) including saved passwords, cookies, etc.

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