Beware of the New Facebook Trusted Contacts Scam

Facebook Trusted Contacts Scam: How It Works

The Facebook Trusted Contact Scam proves that every single feature that Mark Zuckerberg’s platform launches – or is about to implement – is subject to fraudulent activities. Whether its about the Facebook’s timeline color theme, Copyright Infringement or Dislike button activation, scammers are there to take advantage of naive users who look for a better experience.

In case you didn’t know, Facebook has a feature called “Trusted Contacts,” which allows any user to choose 3-5 friends who they trust to help recover their account in the event they get locked out. A legitimate feature, very useful. How does it work?

Watch the video below to see how to recover your account with Facebook trusted contacts:

Recovering Facebook Account With Trusted Contacts Video

The scam works like this: you get a message from a Facebook friend who tells you he urgently needs your help accessing his account. It is basically an attempt to fool you into handing over your account credentials to someone you think you can trust. But here is what to pay attention to:

The scam is initiated by someone who has already taken over the account of your friend (here is how a Facebook password hacker can quickly get into your account).

In the Facebook Trusted Contacts Scam, the criminal sends you an urgent message (pretending to be your friend) claiming to need help getting back into their account. He invites you to check your email for a recovery code. The purpose is to log into your account using the “Forgot my password” button.

When you look at your email and see the recovery code from Facebook the hacker triggered, you’ll be asked to send it over and thereby give access to your account.

Essentially, the scammer claims you are one of his contacts, and a cursory search on your part will tell you the feature is a real thing even if you’ve never heard of it. It’d be easy to get sucked in.

Facebook Trusted Contacts: How To Avoid

Contact the friend whose account is messaging you. Call. Obviously, if they don’t know what you’re talking about, explain, delete the message and go ahead with your day.

It would be useful to know precisely which Facebook friends have you as their trusted contacts as well. Another red flag is the information they request. When you get locked out of your account, your trusted friends don’t just send you a recovery code — they each provide a piece of a it. It means that you need a small part from all of your trusted contacts to get back into your account. Which also means it will not look the same as the recovery codes you use on your account.

Facebook Trusted Contacts Trap: How To Report

Let your family and friends know about this scam by sharing it on social media. You can also officially report the scammers to the Facebook using the link below:

Report To Facebook Here

How To Stay Away From Facebook Scams

If you want to be the first to find out the most notorious scams every week, feel free to subscribe to the Scam Detector newsletter here. You’ll receive periodical emails and we promise not to spam. Last but not least, use the Comments section below to expose other scammers.

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