A few years back I was in frequent contact with a truly remarkable woman who had both led at least one program and had taught in adult education classes. I’ll refer to her as N.J.
On Facebook some time in the last few weeks some perp impersonating her showed fake excitement over a man with an organization apparently doling out grant money for worthy program development. “She” was excited because she had qualified, and wanted to share the opportunity with me.
The individual grants were allegedly up to $100,000!
And, yes, maybe that alone should have set off the “too good to be true” alarms. :o
I was given an url. Then I didn’t hear from “N.J.” for a while.
So I looked up her contact info. No e-mail, but there was a phone number on the page. I called her Monday morning.
And she told me she knew someone was trying to scam people using her name. (She also mentioned that I had been the only one so far to call her. that probably is neither here nor there.)
Her response on finding this out had been to “stay off Facebook for a while”. I figure that’s what she was advised to do, by either FB or someone in the know about these things.
My main source of embarrassment was belatedly realizing that I had never had her as a FB friend. Although it somehow has seemed for a while that people can show up in Messenger chat without being on your Friend list. Maybe that only applies to people who had once been on, though.
Embarrassment aside, how should I proceed? I mean, it never got to the point where I was even asked for cash up front for some quirky fraudulent reason, let alone getting to the point of sending it. I like to think I’m not THAT DUMB. A few months ago I had received a call while at a senior center
about a tropical cruise for two. The caller seemed oddly pushy when I was unsure whom to invite, and I realized my leg was being pulled when some excuse was made for me sending money in advance. So I hung up.
What I had done, before speaking to the real N.J. was Message my e-mail and home phone.
Now for perhaps a silly question: Should I also stay off FB for a while? or do something else? Is there something I can do to aid law enforcement, if there is a possibility of tracing the scam? Or should I just relax, because there is nothing they can do with just (some of) my contact info?
(I haven’t yet found the way to alert Facebook.)