Don’t Click On The Who Is Looking at Your Facebook Profile App and A Little Help From Terence

So here I was wondering which topic I should write about for the #smcsfblogoff while I am perusing my Facebook stream and I happen to see a post on a friend’s wall about an app that gives you a list of the people who are checking your Facebook profile. And I click on it! Oh…no…what did I get myself into??? This is the first time I fall into this trap.

They offer you a $100 gift certificate for some buffalo wings. Enticing right? But there’s a price for that..you have to go through a million links of signing up for car insurance quotes or Walmart savings plus filling out a survey. What a scam! My curiosity got the best of me and and I kept clicking on those darn links. And meanwhile, two  posts on my Facebook wall from this app that I stupidly allowed to access my profile, went up without me knowing while I am clicking away on all this links! Argghhhh… It was really my techie side wondering who created all these landing pages! Like…wow..that’s alot of work!

I deleted them right away from my wall..but by then a good friend Terence Shepherd, who is the editor of Miami Herald- WLRN sends me a link in private chat:

Hey there, so yeah I viewed your profile today, and yesterday.., but check this out
https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/03/27/facebook-profile-viewer-rogue-application/

So now I am thinking, “Oh no..now it’s a spam bot on all my Facebook friends. What have I done??”

I reply instantly: “What?” ..Hoping I didn’t infest my friends’s profiles with some nasty internet worm or virus.

Whew..a real person is there…He replies right way: “The thing on your wall? Check out the link I just sent.”

It turns out, it is a total scam, not the link he sent me, but the access to the “Who Is Looking At Your Facebook Profile” app. I never got the $100 buffalo wings certificate. (Ok…I hadn’t had dinner..so maybe I was hungry at the time.)

But all is well and all can be undone. To fix this.. go to Settings and click on Apps and remove the app.

Thank you Terence for saving the day! And you know, there is a good ending to every story. I was able to reconnect with Terence. I asked him what he was up to and he told me that he was busy with WLRN’s website relaunch. So check it out!
You can also follow Terence on Twitter and send him a tweet. He’s a super nice guy. He was the first Twitter friend I met in real life at a Tweetup on June, 2009 when the Miami Herald hosted their first ever Tweetup in Miami.

I think it is time for another Tweetup from the Miami Herald.Don’t you think? Nudge him:)