Roswell police have had reports of people targeted by scammers who use Facebook to try to get money from them.
Apparently tricksters find folks with unsecured Facebook accounts, contact the user and try to blackmail them into sending money via Western Union or else they'll "send out lewd photos of them to all of their friends," the department said in a Monday post on Facebook.
The department said investigators have received two reports: one where fraudsters contacted someone directly on Facebook Messenger and another victim texted the threat who had their phone number listed on their Facebook account.
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The department said in the comment section of the post that, even if aren’t lewd photos of you online you might still want to be concerned.
"I think in these cases, the blackmailer had random lewd photos of different body parts (and) not actually of the victim but they threatened to send it as the victim to all their friends," the department wrote.
Police gave tips for now to not put yourself at risk:
• You can make your account more secure by going to the top right corner of the page (PC users click on the downward facing arrow and go to settings. Mobile users click on the three horizontal lines and go to settings/privacy).
• From here you can navigate the page and choose who sees what you post, your information, and choose from several other options which make it more difficult for scammers.
• Take some time to go through your friends list to make sure they are actually who they say they are.
If you think you’re being contacted by a scammer, police say don’t send them money and call investigators at 770-640-4100, then report the incident to Facebook.
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