“It looks like you’re trying to report that your account was hacked, phished or otherwise compromised.” The email instructed Lim to click on a link that would help her change her password. But the Spider-Man rule still applies: With great power comes great responsibility.Īfter Lim contacted Facebook to report issues with her account, she received what looks like a robo-response from the “privacy operations” team. But these guys might ask for $900 in advance before you can receive $20,000.”Īs for Facebook, I know it’s unreasonable to expect the company to monitor its nearly 3 billion accounts.
It also can involve demands for upfront payments of taxes or delivery fees to facilitate the awarding of the imaginary grant. “At that point,” Kelley said, “the conversation totally ceased.”ĭavid Kingsbury, general counsel for Lions Club International, told me the scam typically involves requests for personal information, including bank account numbers. Fake Lim said Kelley was asking “stupid questions.” Kelley replied that Fake Lim obviously wasn’t her friend Cynthia. “Cynthia would obviously know them as well.”įake Lim, of course, did not. She also asked Fake Lim to name the neighbors who lived next door to Lim’s childhood home. Now concerned this wasn’t on the up-and-up, Kelley asked Fake Lim for the name of Lim’s oldest sister. She asked Fake Lim via Facebook for more information. “That sounded really suspicious,” Kelley told me. Kelley tried the number, got no answer and messaged Fake Lim that no one was answering.įake Lim responded that Kelley would need to text first to let the Lions Club know she was interested. Fake Lim gave her a phone number to call. Kelley replied that she was definitely interested. (The real Lim, needless to say, received no such funding.) The Salinas resident said she was excited at first about the possibility of some much-needed extra funds, especially with the endorsement of a trusted friend.įor the sake of brevity, I’ll refer to the person who messaged Kelley as Fake Lim.įake Lim wrote that the Lions Club grants are perfect for “paying bills, buying a home, starting your own business, going to school or helping raise children.”įake Lim also said she had herself received an $80,000 grant through the program, delivered right to her door. “I thought, ‘That girl is such a go-getter!’” “The message came in around 7:30 in the morning,” Kelley, 64, told me. Most expressed shock and anger that the identity of someone they trust was used in this fashion.ĭenice Kelley grew up with Lim and was one of those who received the posts via Facebook Messenger, ostensibly from her childhood pal, encouraging her to seek a Lions Club grant. More than 800 comments were posted below the warning. The Lions Club scam is sufficiently widespread that the philanthropic organization, with 1.4 million members worldwide, posted a notice on its own Facebook page warning people not to be duped. Lim said she’s aware of at least a half-dozen Facebook friends who took an interest in the pitch, based on her seeming recommendation. So those Messenger posts about the Lions Club appeared very appealing, and convincing, to a number of people. To her circle of Facebook friends and acquaintances, she’s a respected source of information about grants and alternative funding sources.
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