A Facebook message persuaded me to give my personal information to fraudsters

Today I was the victim of an attempted scam. The scammers made contact via Facebook Messenger and the identity of a friend of mine, a former colleague.

They persuaded me to believe that I had been a winner of a Facebook lottery. I withdrew before giving bank or card details, but revealed more information than I would have liked - my name, home address, date of birth, email, mobile and my profession.

I fear that the information I have provided will be used or resold. If you have any advice on how I can take steps to limit any further damage, I would greatly appreciate your providing it.

PC, per e -mail < /em>

It doesn't sound like much fun, but if you had given your credit card details, it could have been much worse. If I were you, I'd aim to make sure two-step verification is enabled for my email - if you haven't already. If any of your passwords used your date of birth or similar, I would change them as soon as possible. In fact, it's probably worth changing them anyway.

Unfortunately, you've given the scammers enough information to allow them to impersonate you as purchase goods and services. For this reason, I would sign up for Cifas protection registration, which costs £25 for two years.

This will place a warning flag against your name and other personal details on the Cifas National Fraud Database. This tells companies using Cifas data to take special care when you or someone else uses your details to apply for their products or services. So if someone asks for, for example, a mobile phone contract in your name, they should face enough additional security checks to stop the transaction.

In the meantime, keep a close eye on your bank account and be extra vigilant if you receive calls from people posing as bank or other employees. Good luck.

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