5 Facebook Scams that Steal FB Page Admin Access.

UPDATED: 11th September 2023.

There are many scams making rounds online to steal Facebook pages' admin access. I have listed a few such common scams below:

Remember, regaining a lost Facebook page or admin access to a hacked FB page or/and access to a lost Ad account is much more painful than being prepared & educated about the hacks causing all such troubles. Remember, prevention is better than cure!

In this context, as an avid user of Meta products and especially a page, you must be aware of the latest hacking techniques making rounds in 2023 and which will surely dominate in 2024 as well.

THE GROUND:

To get admin access back to your hacked page, you have to go through a lot of ordeals as I wrote in my previous post that you can read HERE. But, with the knowledge of the process or the techniques deployed by the scammers to steal FB pages and Ad accounts, you can at least stay prepared and easily spot a scammer.

After successfully recovering the lost admin access to more than 73 Facebook pages by now, I can confidently say that I know many ways not to lose your Facebook page's admin access. I have listed the most common ones in this article.

THE SCAMS:

1. ANY PROMOTIONAL OFFER WHICH IS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE: Despite knowing the fact that scammers try to send us deals/offers way above the common practices, we fall prey to such scams. This is not anyone's fault, this is how the human brain works... everyone wants something better!! So, next time you see/get a lavish opportunity/offer (that involves your FB page and/or FB business manager), please be wary. Even if it comes from a very reliable and known source, give it a second, third, and probably a 100th good look. One of my clients, a motivational speaker with 23K followers on her FB page, got an offer to post/update paid promotions to her page with a lucrative deal of US$500/Ad. She could not resist the offer and lost her page to the scammers.

2. EMAILS REPORTING AD VIOLATIONS: Yes, stay away from any emails indicating Ad violations when you run Facebook Ads. This might sound weird but if there's an Ad Rejection, email is not the place you should resort to. Ad Manager though is !!

Generally, such a scam email contains a link that leads to a FB page containing another link with an extension of .app. Now, if you click on that .app link a malicious file will get installed into your system that can easily steal everything from your Facebook Ad Account to your FB Pages.

3. ADS ON FB WITH BIG PROMISES OR ANY HOT TOPIC LIKE BARD ETC.: If you follow trending topics like AI and ChatGPT, you must have noticed some Ads with links in them, posing as Google Bard and other big names making rounds on Facebook. When you click on that link or the link in the CTA, you are doomed... a malicious browser extension will get installed which can steal all the Facebook data and access.??

4. SHEER GREED & STUPIDITY: Do not let your greed surpass any sensible understanding that involves your Facebook page and/or Ad account. In other words, do not fall prey to scams promising big & easy money.

Avoid putting your WhatsApp or any active numbers on the page, unless and until absolutely necessary or you have an automation in place.

Whenever you need to provide Facebook access to anyone, please make sure that you never give full control access. If you, by all means, have to give full access to anyone, you should consider a legal contract before even sharing the actual access!!?

5. SUSPICIOUS OFFERS ON FREELANCING SITES: There is a new type of scam targeting freelancers and consultants on platforms like Upwork, Freelancer, TopTal, Fiverr, Linkedin etc.

Here, the scammer wears a client's skin to make it look authentic and then tries to persuade the freelancer/consultant to install a .exe file shared through file-sharing platforms or email.?That exe file, once installed, can steal all the Facebook pages and FB Ad accounts within a few seconds.

These 5 are just the most common types of scams out of hundreds of other scams I have encountered while rendering my services in restoring Facebook page admin access in the last few years.

So, after writing these 5 ways, I want my readers to stay safe, alert, and proactive to prevent any such unwanted scams.

If you already have lost admin access to your Facebook page or Ad account, here's a little help I tried to offer through my previous post available at: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/how-restore-admin-access-hacked-facebook-page-syed-mohsin-raja/

GOOD LUCK !!!

(If you have already faced a similar situation, please share your experience here. Thanks!)

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AN UPDATE: 27th July

Just a few minutes back, I received another email from another group of scammers w/ the subject line "Your account will be deleted from Meta Platform".

Curious like ever, upon inspecting, I noticed that the domain extension is not Facebook or Meta itself. Scammers in this case used email software to send these emails.

The link in the mail under "Appeal Here" then takes to a bogus Facebook group as in the snapshot below:

Now this post in this group contains a malicious link that can steal all your Facebook data along with pages, Ad accounts, and group admins.

So, What Next? How do we stay safe from this? What else can be done so that others are safe too?

As soon as you see that group, REPORT it to Facebook.

Report both the post and the group or the page.

---------------------- NEW CASES BELOW --------------------

Fake Linkedin Job Posts:

Scammers are NOW posting fake jobs on Linkedin and sending (EXE) application files through acceptance mails to get into your FB pages, Ad accounts, business manager, and even Google Ad and YouTube accounts.

Here's my Linkedin Alert Post: https://www.dhirubhai.net/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7091157811199455232/

On 30th July, I looked through the Linkedin job section for FB/Google media buyers (advertisers) and applied for one that appealed to me. To the much of surprise, I got an email citing acceptance within just a few minutes of applying.

The email contained an instruction to download and install files from a Dropbox folder to which the link was already in the email. Must say, the scammers are very smart here in this case.

Upon downloading I noticed that all the files were application (.exe) files. Then I ran them through a custom software on my 2nd PC, where I do not have anything related to FB and Google Ads I run for my clients. Turned out that all the files were extensions for Chrome and Brave that can extract any and all access to Facebook and Google/YouTube accounts.

Fake Order or Enquiry on Messenger

Of late, another interesting avenue used by the scammers caught my attention. In this event, they are sending fake messages to the pages (worth hacking/stealing) with fake orders or inquiries.

In this particular case, the scammer tries to behave the way a prospective customer would have. They send an order message along with .RAR files. And if you extract and click the files... your page reaches heaven!!

Here's a snapshot of such an incident: