MEDINA, Ohio — The Medina Police Department is reminding the community to beware of the posts you share on social media. Officers are finding that included in those posts are often scams aimed to steal your money or information.
There is a Facebook scam that the department says it has seen being shared throughout the community.
3News asked local cybersecurity expert Meredith Kasper of Hurricane Cybersecurity how the scam works. She says a scammer will take a Facebook user’s original post that’s been shared a number of times and then make a shareable one of their own. They typically use something the scammer knows will grab your attention.
“The immediate gut reaction is for you to act quickly and click the links and start moving on this terribly sad or wonderful opportunity to get you to act before thinking,” Kasper explains.
The real fraud comes with the link they include. It’s one they know victims will click on. Kasper has some suggestions for you to keep in mind.
“Checking to see if that poster has turned off commenting or limited the ways you can interact with a post so that the only information there is what they want to show you, should be a red flag,” she says.
So if you come across something that doesn’t seem right, be sure to view the posts’ edit history and check to see if the comments have been disabled.
“Have you ever seen anything else in the media, other stories about this? That’s a good way to verify that the information is accurate,” Kasper adds.
Also verify if the person who originally shared the post is real and if they post often.
“Check to see who posted it and that they are a real person, that the Facebook account was made more than 24 hours to seven days ago,” Kasper advises. “Try to verify that they’ve been around for a few years at least and that they regularly interact.”
Kasper adds that the best thing to do if you spot a scam is to report it to Facebook so the post can be locked. Or if you might know the person who originally shared the post, reach out to them to verify that it’s real.