So I was not working this morning while cruising facebook and got a chat from a friend of my lady friend. I’ve only met this chick once, so it seemed a little bizarre that she randomly felt like chatting at nine in the morning.
I just presumed it was my irresistible charm, shrugged it off and started chatting with her.
That is, until she told me she got mugged in London last night and asked that I wire her money so she could get home. I asked a few questions because it obviously wasn’t legit. After a little bit of probing, I called this hacker out and they signed off.
Facebook hacks started off as “Hey! Check out these sick ringtones for $0.99!!” and “ZOMG UR ON THIS BLOGG!!!1″
Now hackers are straight asking you to wire them money. Of course, the beauty (well, you know what I mean) of this scam is that there’s a 95% less chance that you will question a friend via chat versus a random, unintelligible wall post. I guess people weren’t kidding when they said “Facebook is the new Myspace.”
It seems, of course, kind of comical that anyone would ever fall for something like this. But believe me, they do: the future Mrs. Ex-Piler nearly mailed money to Africa last summer to rent an apartment owned by a guy “just over in Africa working for the year.” I’m not sure how you can be at the top of your class in law school and fall for things like this, but it almost happened. As usual, I saved the day and stopped her from wiring the money
Same thing applies here: I doubt I was the only friend the hacker approached. And it speaks pretty heavily to the problems that Zucker-brah and Facebook as a whole have begun experiencing since they opened up the site to everyone. Spammers and hackers are going to try and make money; when you give them a window with which to access millions of users, they’ll take it. And I understand it’s not all Facebook’s fault, because the site can’t be completely secure, I guess.
But the Book’s value has already taken a plunge with the rest of the economy and now it appears as if NOTHING is safe on a site that just a few short months ago was asking for people to store their credit cards for use in the Facebook marketplace. It’s sad, because F-book used to be a wonderful and awesome way to stalk attractive co-eds without the police interferingconnect with friends, and now it’s just another shitty version of Myspace. Only with more mafia requests.
Take the jump for my convo with said hacker.
10:05am Friend
hi
10:09am The Piler
hey there
what’s up?
10:09am Friend
not good
10:10am The Piler
what’s wrong?
10:11am Friend
i was mugged at a gupoint in london last night
all cash,creditcard and cell got stolen
it was a brutal experience
10:12am The Piler
oh my goodness
that’s terrible
he didn’t hurt you did he?
10:13am Friend
i am really freaked out right now and i need your to help us get back
no.. i am good
10:14am The Piler
[The Piler's lady friend] got her purse stolen last weekend…not quite as traumatic, though.
10:14am Friend
we still have our passports and our flight leaves in 3hours but we are having some probs with the hotel manager
10:14am The Piler
okay
what can i do?
10:15am Friend
i need you to loan me some money to sort out the hotel bill
and i will refund it back to you tomorrow
????
10:18am The Piler
How do I know this is really Friend?
10:18am Friend
because i want you to wire the money to my name
and i can’t get the money with an ID at western union
i still have my passport with my face on it
10:19am The Piler
How do we know each other?
10:21am Friend
huh
10:21am The Piler
If this is really Friend, tell me how we met.
10:23am Friend
Ofcourse its me
10:23am The Piler
obviously, it’s not.
you don’t know how we met.
10:24am Friend
Ofcourse i do
who are you anyways?
i met you through a friend
10:25am The Piler
wrong.
I will be letting Friend know immediately that someone has hacked her account.
10:27am Friend is offline.
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