Facebook & Instagram account takeover scams people, banks, & government agencies!

BankInfoSecurity.com reported that “More than 4 billion people have accounts on Facebook and Instagram, making them the most popular social media platforms on the planet. Members share photos, life events and opinions to attract followers, build businesses and stay connected with friends and family. But there's a darker side to these social platforms.”  The January 26, 2023 article entitled “Account Takeover Claims Grow 1,000% as Scams Hit People, Banks, Government Agencies” (https://tinyurl.com/57wtndsc) included these comments:

 Social media account takeover complaints to the Identity Theft Resource Center jumped more than 1,000% last year. Theft, impersonation and fake accounts on Facebook and Instagram - social properties of Meta - are fueling a massive increase in scams and illegal activity. In fact, federal authorities say about 50% of account takeover cases today originate on social media.

"We have all these platforms, but who's taking care of your security? Who's taking care of your privacy? I don't think anybody really is. Frankly, I think the efforts are lame." – Chris Ingram, author, former radio personality and Facebook identity theft victim

 "These social media scams are bigger parts of underlying scams we're seeing out there," says Stephen Dougherty, financial fraud investigator with the U.S. Secret Service. "We are seeing a lot of social media impersonation and social media misinformation being used to carry out scams such as romance scams, which we all know are very, very impacting for the victims involved because not only are they at financial loss usually, a lot of times they can be flipped and used as money mules to perpetrate bigger cyber and even financial crimes such as business email compromise." 

What do you think? Do you want to continue using Facebook & Instagram?