Facebook: Scammers Tactic: Dating/Relationships

If you've never checked the 'Other' segment of your Facebook inbox, you're probably not missing much. However, when I checked mine I found out that the 'Others' folder is the place Facebook sends messages that pages I've liked have sent to me.

Well the pages send these messages to all their fans but they might as well have been to only me. Facebook treats the 'Others' folder as a kind of spam folder that you could decide to ignore outright, or clean up since it's possible an important mail could make its way there.


 I will not complain about Facebook's 'spam filtering' because I think they try to err on the side of caution. This blog post is going to focus on messages from people that say they saw your profile and would like to pursue some sort of relationship. I've found most (99.9%) of these to be from scammers. By now, this is not a new tactic but it has replaced the slightly older tactic of claiming they are stranded in a refugee camp. Here are some tips for avoiding scammers that prey on unsuspecting people. Yes, there are still people who are new to the internet world, who are looking for love in all places. If they were not many, these scammers would be out of business.


Be on alert for the following:

  1. Message from someone you don't have any friends in common with: Generally you shouldn't even bother with people you do not know who do not have a referral from someone you know. Sometimes they may be lucky to have been 'friended' by one of your hapless Facebook 'friends'. That gives them a leg in to add more and more of your friends. Essentially, you'll find that the mutual friends they end up 'friending' will have one thing in common with you (your high school for example).
  2. Person doesn't have many/any friends: Not only do they not have any friends in common with you, some actually do not have friends or have restricted access to their friends list. You don't want anything to do with them either way.
  3. Only one picture: This is usually a supposedly attractive picture of the member of the opposite sex and they claim they'll send you more pictures when you reply them. If you want to have some fun, right-click on the picture and copy the web address for that picture. A Google image search for that web address may show you that the same image has been used in other scams!
  4. Bad grammar...yeh di person spoked bad eenglishes...
I think you should just run clear away from any message that starts with "I saw your profile and...". Please feel free to add more tips via comments. Enjoy your week.

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