Avoid Popular Facebook Scams and Hoaxes

As the world of tech becomes more advanced so are the online scams and hoaxes, a few years ago when the we saw the "data entry Jobs" and the "Make money online for free" scams which still exists in small number and different forms however the scammers seems to have shifted gears since the new money making opportunity for them is now on the social media.

Since Facebook is undoubtedly the mother of all social media networks, it is also the main target  for the online thieves. Just to make sure you dont fall prey to these scams and hoaxes, here are 3 of the popular ones.

Find out who's viewing your profile

Get this straight, this is probably one of the biggest and open lie that the scammers will tell you. Unlike other social networks where you are able to see who visited your profile, Facebook does not allow this and they have stated very clearly in their Privacy policy. We are not sure yet if Facebook will decide to allow this in future but you are assured that at the moment this cant happen.

So if you see a link that promises to let you see who viewed your profile just DONT click on it.


Sick Child Hoaxes

 There are some photos that have been circulating of sick or deformed children which sometimes promise that "If you share this photo a number of times then Facebook will send money to the child's family for help"  Be very careful with these because in most cases the people circulating these photos only want some sot of attention and not for the real intended purpose.

"Watch if you are a male" or "I cant believe he/she (Celebrity) actually did that"

These type of hoaxes normally appear in form of a video thumbnail with a very salacious headline telling that the celebrity in subject has something very outrageous which lures you into clicking on the video. This type of scams will normally continue to post pictures on your wall and lure other people the same it did to you and that's how it spreads around giving the owner an opportunity either to make money out of it or to install malicious softwares on your computer.

There are many scams and hoaxes that keep showing up on Facebook daily, these are just the popular ones and one needs to be careful not to click on something that will install a malware on your computer to steal your information.

If you know of any other popular scam, please drop it in the comments