Look at this post above. ย Wouldn’t this be a great coupon to get? ย I too would love one — if it were real!! ย There are so many scammy sites popping up on Facebook lately, and this can harm YOU! ย These pages infuriate me. ย They are horrible sites preying on the desire of people to save money. ย Here are some that we’ve seen:
Completely Coupons
Deal Dash
Women Get It Free
These are not legitimate sites. ย They are only trying to collect fans so that they can turn around and sell the page to someone. ย If you read the privacy policies on some of these sites, they flat out state that they are collecting your information to sell it. ย Yep – they admit it. ย Do you ever read the privacy policies of sites? ย It might be a good thing to do before you like them.
You might want to also take a quick a look and make sure that you haven’t liked these pages! ย You say you know for sure you didn’t? ย Are you really sure? ย Still, take a look. ย You might find that there are pages it shows you like, which you have never ever visited. ย How in the world does this happen? ย Bots.
There are people out there who actually sell this service – allowing pages to purchase Facebook Fans. ย These page owners can pay and gain anywhere from 10,000 to 1,000,000 new fans. ย Once these sites pay, these companies release a bot onto Facebook, which goes through and randomly makes people like their page – without their knowledge.
You say you don’t care because just since you liked them it doesn’t mean you will visit the page. ย Well, it can and will hurt you. ย First of all, they might hack into your personal information and use that to send out additional bots to your family and friends. ย They can send viruses. ย In addition, they can make you post things onto pages and walls without your knowledge.
Have you all seen the “I just got my $500 Walmart Gift Card in the mail – Come get one too!!” posts on pages? ย These are NOT being made by the person who owns that page. ย Instead it is a bot. ย You never know where this came from — through a page or a link on Facebook (even the bots that made you like a page you didn’t know about). ย It could even be the result of a friend of yours clicking on something, which attaches you by association.
What can you do about this? ย There are a few things you can (and should do):
1. ย Clean house. ย Go through all of the pages you’ve liked and make sure they are page you intended to like. ย If not, unlike them immediately and REPORT THEM to Facebook (click the little gear on the page and then report). ย They need to be made aware of what the page is doing)
2. ย Check your Privacy Settings. ย Make sure that your privacy settings are turned on. Click on the down arrow by HOME at the top of the site.
The first thing is control of your privacy. ย If you set it to PUBLIC anyone and everyone can see it. ย Check to make sure it is at least FRIENDS
How You Connect – make sure this is not everyone. ย This means anyone can find out anything about you, send you a message and friend you – even if you do not know them.
Timeline and Tagging – determine who post on your timeline and who can not. ย You can also control what you see on your timeline and your tagging in photos options.
Apps, Games and websites – click on Edit Settings and get rid of all of those apps that you’ve used to get a coupon or offer. ย You can do this everytime you get an offer (claim it and then come in here and unattach it to your page.
3. Check your General Settings. ย Click the down arrow by HOME and go into Account settings.
Check Security. ย Make sure that you are secure browsing.
Login Notifications. ย Turn this on as if someone tries to hack your account, you will get a notice (so you can update your password).
Login Approvals. ย This is another layer to help ensure that you do NOT get hacked. ย You will need to set this up (so you will need to have your phone handy). ย I recommend that you do this to keep your information safe.
App Passwords. ย You can set this up to have one-time passwords you enter to use your apps. ย This helps keep your password safe.
These are just some of the things you can (and should) do to protect yourself from hacks and even potential viruses. ย Sadly, there are people who want to use your information to further themselves and don’t care who is hurt in the process.