MetaChat - Facebook Weirdness

MetaChat is an informal place for MeFites to touch base and post, discuss and chatter about topics that may not belong on MetaFilter. Questions? Check the FAQ. Please note: This is important.

06 July 2011

Facebook Weirdness I received three emails from Facebook, all with the same message and stating it had sent it to all email addresses associated with my account. I've only ever used one email with Facebook. Probably needless to say, I haven't requested an email change.→[More:]

The email:

Hi Deborah,

You recently asked to reset your Facebook password. To complete your request, please follow this link:

https://www.facebook.com/recover.php?n=xxxxxxxxx&id=xxxxxxxxx&s=100

Alternately, you may go to https://www.facebook.com/recover.php and enter the following password reset code:

xxxxxxxxx

Please note: for your protection, this email has been sent to all the email addresses associated with your Facebook account.

*Didn't Request This Change?*
If you did not request a new password, let us know at:

https://www.facebook.com/login/recover/disavow_reset_email.php?n=xxxxxxxxx&id=xxxxxxxxx

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Fake? Phishing? Hope me!

PS: As I was typing this up a fourth request came through.

post by: deborah at: 13:20 | 10 comments

I haven't a requested a password change, of course.

Also, request number five just showed up. And when I clicked on this link: https://www.facebook.com/recover.php, all it did was take me to my news feed.

posted by deborah 06 July | 13:22

Someone entered your user name and then clicked password recovery. The last link is just a mechanism that probably disables the person who did it from spamming it again.

You can know it's facebook when https://www.facebook.com/ is in the url. The extra 's' instead of just http, means it's a secure connection( so the page will not load if there's a proxy that could intercept data between you and website).

If you click the bottom link that you did not request a change it will take you to a page that says it will not be changed and it is safe to log on.

Then when you've logged on, change your password.

posted by Senyar 06 July | 13:27

I got something similar yesterday and when I checked the actual link attached to the Facebook web address, I saw that it would've sent me somewhere else entirely. THAT was fully phishy. But if the links do go to Facebook, somebody may be messing with your account.

posted by oneswellfoop 06 July | 13:33

Change your password and your associated email address.

Related blog post here.

posted by Senyar 06 July | 13:36

Thanks, folks.

Trying to change my password and, of course, I can't remember it. *headdesk*

posted by deborah 06 July | 13:44

If you're using firefox, your password will be stored in Tools/Options/Security/Saved Passwords.

posted by Senyar 06 July | 13:45

Oh, nice tip. But I remembered it after all.

Thanks again for all the info!

posted by deborah 06 July | 13:47

Here's another: Moron or Scam Attempt? A few weeks ago somebody set up a facebook account using my email address (FirstInitialLastName at gmail). I use a different, throwaway address for facebook, so I didn't respond to any of these so-and-so-friended-you emails, nor to the last-chance-to-activate-your-account email, nor to the we're-sorry-you're-having-trouble-accessing-your-account email, nor to the you-have-deactivated-your-facebook-account email. Made for some sad reading, though.

posted by JanetLand 06 July | 14:28

I get these all the time. I don't doubt there's a phishing scam variant but I have a name twin in New Jersey who simply cannot grasp that my firstname_lastname yahoo account isn't hers and she keeps using it to sign up for FB and Match.com as well as repeatedly requesting password changes from yahoo. I eventually changed the two public-facing password clue questions to "This is not your Yahoo email address, you nitwit." and "No really, it's not your account."

posted by jamaro 07 July | 00:49

Don't click through on the links in the email. Hover your mouse over these to see if they actually come from Facebook. I have seen links in a Spam email that had (e.g.) https://www.facebook.com in the link text, but actually linked through to http://www.spamaddress.ru if you hovered your mouse over the link.

As a general tip: whenever you get an email from a site/organization that you do business with, access the site by typing their regular URL. Don't ever click on links in special offer or unexpected query emails like this one, no matter how trustworthy they seem. It is really easy to hide redirects in emails, now that they use HTML.

posted by Susurration 07 July | 12:14

← Time to figure out next book in the syllabus for MeTa Book Club || Photo Friday Advance: →

HOME || REGISTER || LOGIN