This morning I was messaged by a friend of mine from college who told me that we was stranded in North Wales.  He continued to tell me that last night he was mugged and beaten with all of his cash, cards and cell phone were stolen.

I responded that I was sorry to hear that.  I immediately became suspicious because the English grammar wasn't so good.  I continued talking with him, waiting to see if he would ask me for money.  I asked him how his wife was doing and he responded that she too was beaten pretty badly. 

Eventually, after about 10 minutes, the chatter asked me to wire some money via Western Union to him so that he could pay his hotel bill.  At that point, I called a few of our mutual friends to see if they knew if our friend and his wife were going to Wales.  I also got my friend's cell number and tried calling - voicemail.  A few questions I immediately thought of is, "You don't have cash, cards or a cell phone, but you're chatting on Facebook?" and, "I know the hotel would allow you to call your parents collect to get money, why are you asking your friends?"

Finally, I asked the person I was chatting with for his wife's college roommate's name - some information that couldn't be retrieved from a Facebook profile.  The person immediately logged off and deleted my friend's Facebook account.

A similar convesation to mine is posted at TechCrunch.  Apparently, this scam is very new.  These phishers hack into a Facebook user's profile and gather as much public information about them as possible, including spouse, kids, education, etc.

As always, never send private information or money to anyone (including your good friends) without verifying information.  Just because it's your friend's account, doesn't mean it's them.

And, as TechCrunch stated, there's really nothing Facebook can do to prevent these scams.  It is technically impossible for a social environment to monitor and regulate illegitimate messaging.  I assume, the violator deleted the account in hopes of removing any IP route tracing that Facebook could determine to initiate.   I, however, doubt Facebook would expend HR to track down needles in haystacks.  They're busy doing other things, like redesigning the user interface (again). :)

In light of the YMCA changing its name to "the Y", I thought that it would only be fitting to show the Village People. Unfortunately, the party who posted the video, doesn't want it embedded. so you'll have to click the link in the video or watch it here. I hope you enjoy this blast from the past.

I work with a ton of marketing and sales teams.  Often, their contacts and leads are referred to as "potential" clients.  There's no such thing.

In what once seemed like a disconnected world, this may have been the case (though, not entirely).  However, in a social world, everyone is a client. While a contact or lead may not buy your product or service, they will still buy into (and sell, for that matter) your reputation.  That's what makes reputation management so crucial for today's business - it is just as important as sales and marketing for client acquisition and retention.

Not to toot my own horn, but just to prove a point...

As I meet with many business executives to discuss Social Media, many still don't entirely grasp the concept and, so therefore, their buy-in is often postponed.  However, those leaders still call me or e-mail with questions or concerns because I've been able to establish a great reputation.

We often just "potential" clients by what they can contribute to our bottom lines.  Perhaps, we ought to examine what they can contribute to (or take away from) our reputation.