I love Facebook. It allows me to follow my kids and all their friends, plus my nieces and nephews. I feel connected and kind of hip because I have a Facebook account. That said, my daughter got scammed on FB and it taught some valuable lessons plus gave me some good insights.

Early one morning I received a call from my daughter’s Dad who has been summering in Italy (during Oregon’s famously wonderful summer…weird but wonderful). He was worried that our daughter had gone off to London and was in some kind of difficulty. Should he send money? Go there? What could I advise. Of course I freaked out. When I opened my email, I found numerous emails from my friends and family all asking if my daughter was in trouble  ( and in there somewhere was an unasked question if I was also in trouble, else why would she be asking everyone on the planet for funds to get her home from being stranded in London?) As it turned out, the Nigerian banker who has been holding millions in  accounts for all of us, has moved to London, and set up a new scam using FB as the vehicle for obtaining a world of email addresses.

I contacted my daughter, and lo, she was in a tangle. Someone had hacked her FB account and sent pleas for money to all of her FB friends. That would include relatives who didn’t know her very well, business contacts, professional contacts, contacts of mine….everyone who had ever looked at her FB page. Yikes! And to boot, her FB account had been closed and all the contact information she had for all those people had been lost. She was frantically calling everyone she knew to tell them how embarrassed she was and that she did not need them to send her money. Some of the people she knows had actually contacted the number in the scam email and been thanked for calling and instructed on where to send her funds to return home. Apparently she was unavailable to come to the phone herself, but the folks who answered were friendly and helpful.  In this day of real estate scams and white collar crime, it is so good to be reassured that the heart of the famous silent majority is still hopeful.

It took a few weeks, but my daughter finally got the mess cleared up. And…yes, there is a silver lining to this present day nightmare. My daughter had no idea she is blessed with so many friends and acquaintances who feel so good about her that they were willing to help her without question. People she hasn’t seen since high school were trying to gather some funds to help her out. Fortunately, she was able to get in touch with everyone before anyone sent money to the low life who perpetrated this hoax.

Many of my family members are ultra conservative about signing up for anything that asks their name let alone any other information about them, so they don’t have a FB account. But I still enjoy mine, and I love the fact that this nuisance provided a window into all the good people in this world. Sometimes I forget how great people are, and how trusting they want to be in their hearts, how willing to help. I am really glad that no one had their trust breached by being ripped off, but the potential generosity and love for my daughter in her (albeit fake) time of need was such a gift for her spirit.