Nice Try

There I was, catching up on the posts of my friends on Facebook.

Then the chat window popped up.

A friend of mine from church said hi. I thought it was odd since I don't normally chat with him on the computer. I figured something must be going on for him to initiate chat with me out of the blue. So I responded hi and asked him if everything was okay.

He wrote that he was having a really bad day, and proceeded to tell me he was stranded in London. He was mugged at gunpoint and had all his money and credit cards stolen.

At this point, my very wise wife sitting next to me said, "It's a scam."

So I picked up the phone and dialed my friend's home number here in Virginia.

He answered.

I said, "So you're NOT stranded in London and you have NOT been mugged at gunpoint and lost all your money and credit cards?"

He said no.

I said, "Okay, good. In that case, someone has hacked your Facebook account and is now using it to try and get me to give them money."

I didn't divulge to the thief that the gig was up and continued chatting in an attempt to get him to divulge some information about where he was. I didn't get very far before my friend logged on and reported it to Facebook and changed his password.

Anyway, I thought I should share the story in case anyone else out there gets a chat message from a "friend" claiming they need money. Don't fall for it.