by Dave Moore, CISSP
12/03/2023
Sally wrote, “Hi Dave, I keep getting these notifications [from Facebook] and have tried to resolve them but get nowhere. Is this real or a scam?”
‘Tis the season to get boatloads of scammy emails, texts and messages. As if regular, every-day scammy spam messages weren’t enough, there is always a holiday surge in the numbers, as online crooks hope to cash in on consumers eager to join in the holiday spending spree.
In response to Sally’s cry for help, I replied. She had sent me screenshots showing examples of four messages, all saying about the same thing: “Your Facebook page is scheduled for permanent deletion due to a post that has infringed upon our trademark rights. If you believe this to be a misunderstanding, we kindly request you to file a complaint,” and the bad guys then list a website you are supposed to visit and get into some real trouble.
“The first one, sent from “PAGE FIXEDRESPONSE” has obvious red flags indicating a scam. Just look at the first words, “FIXEDRESPONSE.” No matter what we may think about Facebook, they will never use bad grammar and spelling like that.
I continued: “The second red flag in this message is the website they want you to go to, “biocide.site/pageaidceseid.” Does that look like a Facebook site? No, and Facebook is the only group that can permanently delete a Facebook page, not some “biocide.site” site.”
“Scams like this are designed to steal things from you: logins, passwords, card numbers, etc., just use your imagination. I hope you didn’t click on anything in the message. You should never reply to or click on anything in messages like this unless you are 1000% sure they are legitimate.”
“When you get messages like this, take the first sentence in the message and paste it into a Google search box. Go ahead, do it right now. Copy and paste “your Facebook page is scheduled for permanent deletion” into a Google search box and click ‘search.’ Do you see what I mean? Scam alert!”
“All of these methods to identify scams are covered in great detail in my Internet safety class, “Fight the Internet Bad Guys & Win,” and also in my book of the same name, found at https://fighttheinternetbadguysandwin.square.site/ If you can learn these techniques, and make them part of your Internet thinking, you won’t have to be victimized over and over.”
This wasn’t the first time Sally and her hubby had contacted me with these concerns. Five or six times prior to this, they contacted me with concerns about messages they’d received pushing what were essentially the same scams.
They desperately need to learn how to deal with these situations, before they get into real trouble. I have no idea what trouble they stirred up when they started clicking on links in the scam messages and visiting the scam websites, because that’s when the scam gets serious, and things go south real fast.
Dave Moore, CISSP, has been fixing computers in Oklahoma since 1984. Founder of the non-profit Internet Safety Group Ltd., he also teaches Internet safety community training workshops. He can be reached at 405-919-9901 or www.internetsafetygroup.org