Be wary of Facebook 'friends' pushing phony grant
The 8 On Your Side team hears from a lot of viewers, and a question we've been getting a lot recently is about a scam involving a message on Facebook.
A viewer named Dennis wrote in an email, "A real good friend of mine through high school send me a message on Messenger. He is claiming Elon Musk sent him information on a grant. He applied and won $400,000. He wants to send me info. What should I do?"
Hit the delete button – that's what he should do.
Here's how the Facebook Messenger scam works: The Facebook account of Dennis' friend has been hacked.
Now the bad guy is sending out messages to all of his friends, making this claim that they too can get hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The scammer is hoping the targets will trust the message that appears to be coming from their friend.
If you respond, you'll be asked to pay some kind of upfront fee to apply for your grant money, which you'll never get.
If you received this message, you should be safe. The damage only comes if you respond.
But your Facebook friend has a problem because their account has been hacked.
You should contact them as soon as you can – not through Facebook – to let them know they need to change their password immediately.
