Another scam, and it’s scarier this time—hackers are getting better at impersonation


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Last Updated on 2016-06-23 , 12:26 pm

There was a period of time when we were reading and hearing news about how scammers were targeting the elderly and doing all sorts of things to get their money.

As time progressed, and these scammers started becoming more and more daring, and with the advent of technology, we have them impersonating loved ones to cheat family members and relatives of their cash.

Scary isn’t it? How do we even know who is who now? And these con-artists are smart as heck. They don’t call anymore. They just send private messages.

Like in the case of Mr Nathan Lum who had his Facebook account hacked into. The scammer somehow managed to contact his sister, impersonated him and asked for a bank transfer of $2,700, all while imitating the way Mr Lum would have spoken and asked.

It was apparent from the warning post Mr Lum uploaded on his Facebook page that his sister really thought it was him. Honestly, if someone impersonated my brother the way this con artist did with him, I wouldn’t give it a second thought too.

I mean, What are the odds that it’s someone else communicating with you right?

And that’s not the worst. The scammer went on to contact Mr Lum’s cousin whom he, for some reason, knew was Kuala Lumpur.

Luckily Mr Lum managed to intervene before it got out of hand. And really, what are the chances of an outsider, someone totally not related to you or your family, knowing such intimate information?

Luckily for Mr Lum, though, his sister did not fall for the scam and got off with no damage done.

In our time and age, with such easy access to social media and with our smartphones tracking us wherever we go, it really isn’t very difficult for strangers to know our every move at any one point in time.

As scary as it is, it is also not surprising that if someone happens to take a particular interest in our profile and our lives, they can definitely monitor our every move and even the way we respond to posts and the things we communicate via that platform on a daily basis.

So what does this tell us? We need to be very wary of our private information online and be very alert when we receive weird messages and requests such as these.

It’s really not unlike those Nigerian email scams. Be mindful and always keep a lookout and ear out for sudden requests for money or private information from a family member.

Call them to make sure it is really them you are communicating with before you take any further steps. One can never be too careful nowadays and it is showing all around us.

This article was first published on goodyfeed.com


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