A federal grant scam has targeted an Acadiana resident on Facebook Messenger.
A Carencro woman received Facebook messages from two of her Facebook friends that started off by saying, “Hey, how are you doing?”
She didn’t know at first, but it was a scammer who hacked into her friend’s Facebook account and was trying to get her personal information regarding a fake federal grant, says Susanne Meave.
“The first message is ‘Hi, how are you doing’ and so I’m thinking wow, this is my relative from Florida that I haven’t talk to in a long time and he’s just saying hi,” Meave said.
The scammer then proceeded to ask Meave if she heard about the federal government grant that she could easily apply for.
“There was something not right about this conversation so I let him talk and he says, ‘Hey, have you heard of… I have someone that you can contact and he will help you through this process,” she said.
The scammer said he received $50,000 through this federal grant and it only cost him $5,000.
“The man was pushing me. He wanted my personal information, where did I live, he wanted my banking account,” Meave added.
She said she immediately knew something wasn’t right and she wasn’t talking to the person she originally thought it was.
After starting to question the scammer, she began receiving vague answers.
“The answer that I got back it was ‘That’s great. I’ve been having a busy online searching on what to invest my grant in'” and “‘Have you heard about the new federal grant program?'”
After sending messages back and forth consistently asking questions, Meave says she realized this was indeed a scam.
“This is a scam and you contacted the wrong person,” she said.
The Acadiana Better Business Bureau says the best way to protect yourself from falling prey to such scams is know how federal grants work.
“A lot of scammers will reach out and say that they have a federal grant for somebody the first thing that you should know is that’s not how federal grants work,” says Jenn Love with the Acadiana BBB. “They have personal grants out there, but for a federal grant you have to have some kind of mission usually or you have to at least apply for it.”
Here are some suggestions from the Better Business Bureau on how you can avoid this scam:
- Don’t give out your personal information especially over Facebook.
- You have to apply for a federal grant.
- And don’t pay an initial fee to receive any money– there’s a tell-tale sign of a scam.
If you have a scam you’d like me to investigate, feel free to email at smasters@klfy.com.
The BBB adds that scammers are hacking into Facebook and taking over accounts acting as someone you can trust– but you can’t.
If this scam happens to you, make sure to notify Facebook so they can shut down that account.
