Fake Facebook Messenger Subscription Scam
Another Facebook scam is making its way along the Messenger chat app. This scam plays off the recent rumor that Facebook may move to a freemium or entirely paid subscription model. The message (image below) falsely informs recipients that Facebook will start charging users for using the social channel. The fees supposedly begin as soon as this Saturday the 21st of April.
The message goes on and encourages the reader to perpetuate the falsehood by forwarding it to ten Facebook friends. Of course if you happily (and foolishly) forward the message to ten unsuspecting friends you will not be charged the monthly fee that never existed in the first place.
Those who send the message to ten or more friends will be also be honored with a freaky blue dot somewhere on their profile. Of course, there won’t be any dots since it is all nonsense.
What’s in it for the author of this scam? Not much, just some fame and the joy of scaring social media users. Chatter about a subscription model circulated the interweb after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg answered two days of questioning from Congressmen. Data heads put a value of $11 to $13 on the head of each Facebook user. This quickly fanned into a oh my we might have to pay to post baby photos if we won’t sell our data souls to Facebook advertisers anymore.
It’s not true folks. Even if a Facebook were to move a subscription model, it would never happen this fast. So, hit that big old delete message button and save your ten buddies one minute in their lives wasted reading your chat app spam.
This phishing scam is passed passed along Facebook and through Messenger as well as Messenger Lite. It’s not clear if there is a hack or unauthorized bot forwarding the messages or if people are just sending it on their blissful own.
Michelle writes about cyber security, data privacy focusing on social media privacy as well as how to protect your IoT devices. She has worked in internet technology for over 20 years and owns METRONY, LLC. Michelle earned a B.S. in Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Michelle published a guide to Cyber Security for Business Travelers