'My Total Facebook Views' Scam Spreads On Facebook

A new scam that appeals to both our egos and instinct for voyeurism is spreading like wildfire on Facebook.

An app going by various names, including ProfileSpy and Pro Check, claims it will offer insight into how many people have viewed your Facebook profile if you fill out a short survey and grant the app permission to access your information.

The scam has been making its way around the social network via status updates, which include a link to the suspicious service and text that reads, "My total facebook views are: 1245 Find out your total profile views."

From the flurry of status updates that are appearing on Facebook, it appears many are falling for the phony service.

Don't be one of them: Not only will completing the survey fail to shed light on the number of views your profile has actually received, but doing so will reward the scammer, who is likely to earn a commission, and, as All Facebook notes, "the whole exercise exposes your profile to malware and shares your personal information with an entity that will send you more spam in the near future."

See screenshots of the scam below:

Comments

[bluemlein]

06:31 PM on 02/05/2011

my total facebook views are: 12
and i want to keep it that way.

warning: sitting for long hours on one's bottom, staring at a backlit screen that presents a parade of verisimilitude of the world, clicking furiously here and there, can lead to posterioro obeso and thumbus gigantus. not to mention galloping mental midgetosis and morgellons wires sprouting from one's forehead.

you have been warned but still you persist! where the hey-ho is Q when we really need him?

[MiBFTo]

11:30 AM on 01/27/2011

This is why I use FB for keeping in touch with friends only, and not for playing ridiculous games or using any other app. Once the privacy settings started getting jacked, I quit all my applications altogether. Never going back.

I wish there were a way to opt out of them entirely, preventing even the invitations for them from showing up. I hide them all once they show up, but it'd be nice to never have to deal with it at all.

[NVEnvy07]

02:45 AM on 01/25/2011

I didn't realize that people actually fell for this stuff!!

[tandrmcdonald]

12:24 AM on 01/25/2011

There are so many scams on FB I'm surprised any of the valid apps actually work. The worst places are the games (yes, I play a couple.) which are swamped with messages on the order of "Hey, friends! ! ! I just found a legit cheat to get (fill in the blank with any astronomical number) of ( Fill in the game of choice) gold/cash/et cetera. Click here." Sure.
First, you have to "Like" them, then you have to let them access ALL of your information, then you have to post the message and give them your entire friends' list. I like my friends; why would I do something so snarky to them? If you have a weak moment and click "Like" good luck trying to get rid of the thing; and count on having all your friends ticked off at you.

[hexwrench]

09:13 PM on 01/24/2011

I received a link from a poet friend two weeks ago which read along the lines of "View without viewing" , which seemed like the type of art/poetry thing she might link to. No mention of "profile viewer" or anything fishy like that, so I clicked it and an "Updating Adobe Flash" thing came up which looked fake, so I closed the tab. It then sent obnoxious "Profile Viewer" spam to everybody on my list. Really embarrassing, still getting flak from people.

[Musculus]

05:35 PM on 01/24/2011

Be careful of the new privacy settings of Facebook!!! On this article there are instructions to avoid spam!!!

http://muscvlvs.blogspot.com/2011/01/new-facebook-privacy-settings.html

[tandrmcdonald]

12:26 AM on 01/25/2011

Thanks!

[Carissa Weibley]

08:37 AM on 01/24/2011

I always figured many of these apps were malware, tracking cookies at best, viruses at worst. There needs to be a basic level of awareness when doing anything online. For whatever reason, it seems like otherwise logical people trust the facebook site as completely secure. The same people that would never click on the .exe files, and open spam, are out there clicking away on every single app and game. I would be interesting to see a study on this.

[EdBallsUp]

04:48 AM on 01/24/2011

I second a comment by Dana down the page here. http://folkdirect.com is good and really making waves - it's all in-house too so no third-[arty apps cunningly grabbing your data.

[Calvin Ravenwood]

03:09 PM on 01/24/2011

That link is identified by google as a malware infested site..

http://google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?tpl=safari&site=aline30atx.co.cc&hl=en-US

[thereisonlyoneparty]

12:16 AM on 01/24/2011

What a great scam.

People are very narcissistic (me included; I pulled a 30-something on that narcissism inventory.)   That is amazing.

Whoever thought of this is a genius.

[ogaraj]

10:30 PM on 01/23/2011

Things that make you go hmmmmmmm.....
- People on HuffPo using this social network to insult other social networks or their users.
- People pretending they are a better person for cancelling a social network account comprised of people they know, by announcing it on a social network comprised of people they never met.

[iamrandom]

10:41 PM on 01/23/2011

love this and I agree totally!!!!

[Tykster]

02:25 PM on 01/25/2011

This a commentary forum, not a social networking site.

[ogaraj]

02:40 PM on 01/25/2011

More things that make you go hmmmm.... "This a commentary forum, not a social networking site."

A forum *is* a social network, but thanks for playing...

[iamrandom]

10:12 PM on 01/23/2011

Honestly you are all over reacting it's so not a big deal I have been on FB for about 3 years now, I have never had a problem with spam or being hacked.. I am so sick of hearing people bash FB and tell us all who use this social network to get a life to free ourselves and go out and be with peolpe.. Okay well I have more of a life since FB, I have re connected with old friends I grew up with or went to School with, if it hadn't been for FB I never would have seen or heard from them again,I don't know if you noticed or not but I said "would have never SEEN" because I do see them we meet up all the time. I am also able to keep in contact with friends I made in the many States I lived in while my Husband was in the Military, I have been able to chat on FB with friends and cousins who are serving our country overseas they allow them to have FB accounts now and it is wonderful!!!! If you don't like it don't go on it but as for myself and many others I know I love that.. What I am trying to say is I have a great social life and majority for that is because of FACEBOOK.....

[KatM3650]

01:55 PM on 01/24/2011

That is great for you but for most people it's not like this. Many people neglect their real life (and even parents neglect their children) to play the applications or to keep up their social network status. You would be surprised by the masses of people who neglect their lives and the people in their lives for FB and the internet.

[orkillakilla]

10:03 PM on 01/23/2011

I swore up and down I would never get a Facebook. I was one of the "anti-facebook" guys around here. My girlfriend broke me down last year and I got one. I have to say it is nice to talk to people from highschool that I've lost contact with. I do, however, limit my time on Facebook. It's one thing to have a Facebook account and log in every now and then. It's another thing to spend hours on end looking at people's profiles you don't even like and talk smack about them while you do it, and to look at EVERY SINGLE PHOTO ON EVERY ONE OF YOUR FRIENDS PROFILES!!! (thats what my girlfriend does lol)

All I can say is, make your account private, don't befriend people you don't personally know, and if your really really curious about a link, copy the url, log out of facebook, and go to the url in your browser. Simple as that.

[cynicalme]

09:19 PM on 01/23/2011

is it really necessary to get hateful towards people who like to use fb? get a grip people. to each their own. if you don't like it, don't use it. surely there's something else more important for you to get all riled up about. i mean, just look at the politics page. or fox. it's like shooting fish in a barrel. you could spend days drenching your keyboards and screens in spittle from being so gosh darn angry.

[SAGMUN]

06:56 PM on 01/23/2011

Like the salt machine at the bottom of the, there is no end of creative mischief.

[Joab Pascal]

05:15 PM on 01/23/2011

If you are dumb enough to fall for this scam, you deserve everything that is coming to you.