Recently I received an email from a Scamicide reader who was legitimately concerned in regard to a notice he received that told him that he would have to update his Messenger-Only App within ninety days or his account would be deleted.  Messenger is an instant messaging feature built into Facebook accounts, however, if you don’t want to have a Facebook page, but still wish to use Messenger, you can use the Messenger app for either Android or iPhones.

While I was initially skeptical about the notice, it turns out that the notice was indeed legitimate.  However, since you can never be sure when you are contacted on the phone, email or text message as to who is really contacting you, the question arises as to how you should respond if you get one of these notices.

TIPS

Obviously if you don’t use the Messenger-Only App, you can be confident that the notice which will attempt to lure you into clicking on a link is a scam and you should delete the message.  Clicking on the link will lure you into either providing personal information that can be used to make you a victim of identity theft or download dangerous malware.

However, if you do use the Messenger-Only App, I still think it is prudent not to click on any links found in the notice to you.  The risk of it being a phishing scam is too great.  Instead you should go directly and independently to your account to update your existing Messenger account to a Deactivated Except Messenger Account (DEMA).  A DEMA account lets you use Messenger without having an active Facebook account.  Here is a link with the information you need.  https://www.facebook.com/help/messenger-app/852980212114849

For those of you receiving the Scam of the day through an email, I just want to remind you that if you want to see the ever increasing list of Coronavirus scams go to the first page of the http://www.scamicide.com website and click on the tab at the top of the page that indicates “Coronavirus Scams.”  Scamicide was cited by the New York Times as one of three top sources for information about Coronavirus related scams.

If you are not a subscriber to Scamicide.com and would like to receive daily emails with the Scam of the day, all you need to do is to go to the bottom of the initial page of http://www.scamicide.com and type in your email address on the tab that states “Sign up for this blog.”