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billbenson
11-16-2010, 01:31 AM
I received an email from invite+kr4mywsyeg2r at facebookmail.com inviting me to be a friend. It had some people that I know that don't know each other in the email as existing friends. It was as if a virus got my address book. The thing is I have had no contact with the people on the list and the guy inviting me and they don't know each other. The guy inviting me was a customer who I quoted in 2009 and haven't emailed since. I'm the only common link

The thing is, being on Linux, its unlikely I've had my address book stolen by a virus. Also, all of the people shown I haven't had contact with in at least one year. facebookmail.com redirects to facebook.

Everything about this says spam to me, but I can't figure out how the got me and the grouping of people with facebook accounts. I don't and never have had a facebook account. Oh, it came into my business email which my client would have had but I don't use for anything on the web.

Anybody have any ideas what happened here?

Harold Mansfield
11-16-2010, 09:00 AM
It's been an ongoing problem for at least a year. Facebookmail.com is not actually owned by Facebook (at least not as of last year), but the messages are the result of a hacker and are phishing scams. I really thought that they had fixed it by now.


One answer, simply, is that Facebook users are being easily fooled. Facebook has reminded users to only enter their credentials into a site that originates from facebook.com, not another "one-off" URL. A common origin of some of the spam emails floating around is facebookmail.com, which is a one-off address not affiliated with Facebook.

Here is more about it from fast Company, last year.
The Facebook Email Scam: Have You Been Hit? | Fast Company (http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/chris-dannen/techwatch/facebook-phishing-scam-have-you-been-hit)

billbenson
11-16-2010, 03:33 PM
Interesting. It just looked, walked and quacked so much like a scam that I thought it had to be. Just amazing how they put so many people I know in the email.

Harold Mansfield
11-16-2010, 03:54 PM
Interesting. It just looked, walked and quacked so much like a scam that I thought it had to be. Just amazing how they put so many people I know in the email.

It is! It is a scam/spam.
As for how they include so many people you know...just like when you sign up for a new messaging or social service or network and they ask of you want to to send people you know an invitation and they can extrapolate your contacts based on your emails address..spammers have the same kind of script.