Oooo *Click* ugh… its a scam.

Everyday I am seeing posts come across my wall talking about stuff like

“I just got 2 free tickets on Southwest”
“Facebook is giving away (fill in the blank)”

Unfortunately while these might look tasty, think again. There are plenty of scams floating around Facebook and most of the time it baits people into giving up their personal information or permission to access their profiles.

By ‘allowing access’ after adding an app to your page you run the risk of providing scammers with enough personal information about you and possibly your friends.

Some of the more recent scams are:

* Free Amazon.com Gift Card *
* Change the color of your Facebook wall to red black or pink! *
* Two free Southwest tickets! *
* Two free Jetblue tickets! *

There are many more but like I mentioned, while these look appealing some are rooted in scams to gather your information and make money by driving traffic to different websites. Typically what will happen is that they will promise you something once you “Click this Link” or “Take this survey”. Never really ends the way you hoped it would end.

Do not click on any of these links. Once you have clicked on any of these links another screen pops up on FB asking you for permission to allow the app to access your profile. Most of the time people don’t bother to read this and then end up with a profile that has been compromised.

If you have clicked on anything past or present, you can see if your profile is vulnerable. Here is a quick fix:

In the top right corner of your FB page you will see your name, home, and a little drop down arrow.

Click on Privacy Settings

Scroll down and edit your Apps and Websites

This will show you a list of apps you have granted permission to access your account. If anything does not look familiar to you, I would delete it. This will help prevent the app from spreading through your wall to other profiles.

If it seems to good to be true.. it probably is.