The internet is a very noisy place and sadly, it is not
necessarily a safe place. For example, the other day I received an email
notification with the following message, "Congratulations! Your
application for the U.S. citizenship is ready to be approved. You have
the opportunity to be authorized to live and work in the USA as a lawful
permanent resident." The message went on to tell me what to do next to
"complete the registration process" and provided a link to click.
Clearly a fraudulent attempt to obtain information but such a simple
message could easily be interpreted as valid by a non-citizen and acted
upon with potentially bad results.
Similarly, I was contacted last week by a person masquerading as the CEO of a major US bank. Now this person had a legitimate looking fan page including the correct name and picture of the real CEO. But there were a couple minor issues that raised flags for me.
First of course is the obvious, "Why would the CEO of a major, large US bank be soliciting me directly on Facebook? Next, this person had no friends.
No friends? Wow the CEO of a major bank has no friends. Really? Next I get a message that she is glad we are now good friends because we have an important business matter to discuss. Really? No kidding? Clearly English was not this masquerader's primary language. Who knows where this conversation would have led. I don't know because I reported the page to Facebook and it didn't take long for it to come down.
Those of us who are in any sort of business preach that people do business with people they know, like and trust. More than ever, it is important to treat social media the way it was intended to be used: socially and make friends with people before clicking links. There is such a spam fest going on out there and no one knows where a link may lead them.
If an opportunity sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Don't click the link. Get to know the person. Are they for real? Can you trust them?
There are clearly fakes and frauds trying to gain access to your personal data and if you click links from unknown sources, you put yourself in jeopardy. So let precaution be the word of the day. Don't click links from unknown sources and don't send links to people unless they solicit them and agree they want the link.
Use social media socially, make friends, get to know people, give them a chance to get to know, like and trust you and when appropriate, take the business discussion offline.
Similarly, I was contacted last week by a person masquerading as the CEO of a major US bank. Now this person had a legitimate looking fan page including the correct name and picture of the real CEO. But there were a couple minor issues that raised flags for me.
First of course is the obvious, "Why would the CEO of a major, large US bank be soliciting me directly on Facebook? Next, this person had no friends.
No friends? Wow the CEO of a major bank has no friends. Really? Next I get a message that she is glad we are now good friends because we have an important business matter to discuss. Really? No kidding? Clearly English was not this masquerader's primary language. Who knows where this conversation would have led. I don't know because I reported the page to Facebook and it didn't take long for it to come down.
Those of us who are in any sort of business preach that people do business with people they know, like and trust. More than ever, it is important to treat social media the way it was intended to be used: socially and make friends with people before clicking links. There is such a spam fest going on out there and no one knows where a link may lead them.
If an opportunity sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Don't click the link. Get to know the person. Are they for real? Can you trust them?
There are clearly fakes and frauds trying to gain access to your personal data and if you click links from unknown sources, you put yourself in jeopardy. So let precaution be the word of the day. Don't click links from unknown sources and don't send links to people unless they solicit them and agree they want the link.
Use social media socially, make friends, get to know people, give them a chance to get to know, like and trust you and when appropriate, take the business discussion offline.
