Facebook Class of 2013 Phishing Scheme?

Parents Forum
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<p>I was checking out the class of 2013 group for my college (LSU) and noticed some strange things so I decided to investigate. Anyway this are what I found from my “research.” I posted this in the group.</p>

<p>Does anybody know what is going on with these people and what their motivations are? The whole thing has me stumped.</p>

<p>I just thought I’d let you all know this group is being used as a research tool by some people across the country. It may not bother you, but I would find it kind of creepy knowing everything I wrote and even belonging to this group was being analyzed and dissected as though I was a lab rat.</p>

<p>There are a variety of people in this group who are members of dozens of class of 2013 groups for some reason (research probably, or possibly to profit somehow).</p>

<p>In case you were interested in specifics, here is what I have gathered from my own “research.”</p>

<li><p>There are a group of Illinois State University students belonging to various 2013 groups. This leads me to believe they are working collectively to come up with some sort of analysis of student behavior.</p></li>
<li><p>There are a group of Toledo University students doing the same.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>And here’s where it gets sort of creepy to the point I might feel uncomfortable:</p>

<li>There are about 50 members of this group with no network affiliation. When you click on their names and view their friends, about 3/4 of them have only one friend and each time it’s someone named Candice Ames. Occasionally they will have a few other friends and some of them seem to be either C Oklahoma or Georgia Tech students. This Candice Ames figure has 99 friends, most of them with no network. Strangely though each of these no network profiles have seemingly authentic photos, which could be part of a trap.</li>
</ol>

<p>There are all sorts of theories about this I can think of, the two most likely are </p>

<p>A. Candice Ames is an educator advising students on a project in which they are researching class of 2013 behavior </p>

<p>or what I think is more likely</p>

<p>B. Candice Ames owns some sort of company specializing in collecting data about future college students to sell to companies looking to make money. Ames has recruited students from around the country to work for her and each is assigned a job tracking student behaviors in these sorts of groups.</p>

<p>or</p>

<p>C. Something else extremely fishy is going on.</p>

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<p>Could it be connected with this?</p>

<p>[Wired</a> Campus: Did Company Use Fake Facebook Groups to Market to Students? - Chronicle.com](<a href=“http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/3534/did-company-use-fake-facebook-groups-to-market-to-students]Wired”>http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/3534/did-company-use-fake-facebook-groups-to-market-to-students)</p>

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<p>Regardless of what’s going on in this case, let this be a reminder to us all, especially the college-agers who have grown up online: </p>

<p>Once you send something into cyberspace, you’ve lost control of it. It’s public property, and anyone can use it for marketing (my guess too), research, stalking, or anything else they please.</p>

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<p>don’t worry, I got a bunch of people to email facebook about it and we (the students) regained control of my college groups from Justin Gaither of UMiami haha (obviously a scheme)</p>

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<p>if you know of any suspicious class of 2013 facebook groups, email facebook about it and they will delete the group</p>