Summary: A fake Apple antivirus ad on Facebook locked my mom’s iPad and nearly tricked her into giving up her credit card info. Here's how it happened, three steps to take if you see a Facebook scam, and why I'm finally leaving Facebook and Instagram for good.
Facebook Phishing Scam 2025
This weekend while using Facebook, my mom came across an ad that locked her iPad with a message from the "Security Protection Center" demanding she subscribe to the “apple antivirus protection service” and pay $3.59. It looked creepily official.
Is Apple Antivirus real? (Um, no.)
Fortunately, my mom, a smart cookie, didn’t click and asked for help.
She was right. It was a phishing attempt. The $3.59 was just the hook.
Once this fake antivirus service had her payment information, they would be able to make further unauthorized charges, sell her credit card data, and reuse her email and phone number in future scams.
My mom couldn’t make it go away, and neither could I despite my heavy internet research on how to remove Facebook scam alert.
“Mom,” I asked her. “Your grandkids are no longer on Facebook. Do you really need it?”
She did not. I deleted her account.
And I’m getting rid of mine.
I’m not staying on as @schalleen as previously reported. You’ll now find me at Mastadon, BlueSky and PrivacyMatters2u Substack instead.
The grievances are just too great. When you allow scams to target seniors, I’m out.
Why I quit Facebook
Oh Facebook, how do I despise thee? Let me count the ways!
1 - Phishing attempts happen all the time on Facebook, not only to my mom but to others.
The platform has devolved to the point where my pocketbook, and the financial integrity of those I love, is at risk the longer I stay engaged. It's become the playground of scammers, bad actors, and phishers made worse by Zuckerberg's recent announcement Meta will no longer work to detect abuses of its platforms other than "high-severity violations."
2 - Meta’s own advertising ecosystem doesn’t protect its paying customers.
My brief interaction with placing ads for PrivacyMatters2u came with a flurry of scam emails and phishing attempts including several threatening to permanently delete my page within 24 hours unless I immediately clicked a link. This is FACEBOOK’s own platform! You mean to tell me they haven’t prioritized keeping their advertisers - the bread and butter of their business model - safe?
3 - Algorithms prioritize content that maximizes engagement no matter what
Even if it amplifies genocide (Myanmar), provides a staging ground for school shootings (Ulvalde, Texas; Parkland, Florida), and provides dangerous misinformation (too numerous to list). Facebook and Instagram prioritize content that generates reactions (comments, likes, shares, saves). Content that sparks outrage or fear spreads faster, and violent or extremist material often falls into this category.
4 - Echo chambers normalize violence, hate, and recommend progressively more extreme content.
We are siloed into singular points-of-view that filter out opposing perspectives. This is a trivial example (although probably not to the Duchess of Sussex), but I clicked on a couple of reels that bashed Meghan Markle, and I haven’t seen a nice thing about her since despite my attempts to change the algorithm.
5 - We think we control our privacy but we don’t.
The grievances are many. Here’s just a few:
- Federal Trade Commission has repeatedly called foul and imposed $5 billion of penalties on Meta for the way Facebook said users could keep their data private, and then shared it anyway.
- The Cambridge Analytica scandal exposed how Facebook allowed a political consulting firm to harvest millions of users’ data without consent to build psychological profiles and target voters with manipulative political ads that may have influenced the 2016 Presidential elections.
- The Attorney General of Texas sued Meta and won a $1.4 billion state settlement over biometric and face-recognition tagging of Texans without their consent.
The list of serious infractions goes on and on and on.
Meta clearly values engagement and profit over any sense of social responsibility.
At what point do we walk away from a platform that promises connection and then hoovers up all our personal information, pilfers our friend’s contact details, and lures us with vapid entertainment while creating behavioral profiles for advertisers, politicos and bad actors to use to manipulate, hoodwink, and hurt us?
For me, it’s today.
Please share this blog with others. Where we put our time and attention directly shapes the way corporations treat us.
Meta needs to shape up, or we ship out.
How to Remove a Facebook Scam Alert
🧰 3 Things to Do if You See a Facebook Scam
- Don’t click. Close your browser or restart your device. If you are in the Facebook app itself, remove the app and then reinstall.
- Report the scam to Facebook and Apple.
- Start a privacy reset with tools like SHIELD UP: STOP THE SNOOP.
📣 Share this post to help someone else avoid getting scammed. Let’s send a message. Privacy is power. Let’s take it back.
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Down the Rabbit Hole
Curious? Check out my references for this blog:
An Audit Slams Facebook As a Home for Misinformation and Hate by Sidney Fussell, WIRED, July 8, 2020.
How Meta Turned It’s Back on Human Rights by Mariana Olaizola Rosenblat, TECH POLICY.PRESS, January 27, 2025
Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work by Sarah Wynn-Williams review - a former disciple unfriends Facebook by Stuart Jeffries, THE GUARDIAN, March 16, 2025.
Florida Shooter: When Social Media Foretells a Mass Shooting: Disturbing media-posts apparently made by school shooter rekindle debate about tech companies’ responsibilities to detect threats by Georgia Wells and Sarah E. Neddleman. WALL STREET JOURNAL, August 16, 2018.
Lawyer argues Meta can’t be held liable for gunmaker’s Instagram posts in Ulvade families’ lawsuit AP News by Itzel Luna, AP NEWS, August 19, 2025.
The Small but Might Danger of Echo Chamber Extremism by Thor Benson, WIRED, January 20, 2023.
FTC Imposes $5 Billion Penalty and Sweeping New Privacy Restrictions on Facebook Press Release FTC July 24, 2019.
Cambridge Analytica: how did it turn clicks into votes? By Alex Hern, THE GUARDIAN, May 6, 2018
Disclaimer: The above is solely intended for informational purposes and in no way constitutes legal advice or specific recommendations.