At Facebook, we take your security very seriously and have dedicated teams across the company that focus specifically on protecting people's accounts and fighting cybercrime. Recently we have noticed an increase in scams where people's login information is collected through phishing sites and then their accounts are accessed without permission to ask friends for money. While the total number of people who have been impacted is small, we take any threat to security seriously and are redoubling our efforts to combat the scam.

In this attack, commonly known as a 419 scam, fraudulent individuals access Facebook accounts and pose as the account owner, claiming to be stranded in a foreign country without access to money. Once they've logged in, the scammers send Facebook Inbox and Chat messages and may even post status updates to the person's profile asking friends to send money, usually through Western Union, a money transfer service.

We've posted the full transcript of a real chat conversation between a Facebook user and a scammer to the Facebook Security Page, along with tips to avoid being scammed and instructions on how to report a compromised account. We've also worked with Western Union to help educate consumers about this scam. Western Union has posted a warning about the scam on their website, and they continue to educate their employees on this and other scams.

On the technical side, we have improved a number of our automated systems to better handle this unique class of scam and are taking efforts to ensure that we adapt our response to the scam as it changes. At the same time, our security team is working with law enforcement and collaborating with email providers and other industry experts to identify and catch the criminals responsible. Western Union also is working closely with law enforcement on scams such as this one.

While only a small number of people have experienced this type of scam on Facebook, we are committed to constantly improving our systems and implementing additional measures to better respond. We need your help too. Educate yourself on this scam and others by becoming a fan of the Facebook Security Page, and report any suspicious activity you see using the report links on the site and the contact forms in our Help Center.


Alok, a software engineer on the site integrity team, builds systems to protect you and fight crime.