Scammy Facebook Timeline deactivation pages target users

As more and more Facebook users choose to try out the new Timeline view of their profiles, some are disappointed and want to revert back to the old view. Unfortunately for them, Facebook doesn’t offer the option – in fact, Timeline will be the default view for profiles very soon – but that doesn’t stop them from trying to do it.

Sadly, scammers have picked up on this trend and have offered them bogus solutions to their problem – there are a number of Facebook pages (and more are popping up) that offer steps to follow to disable Timeline.

These steps usually consist of liking that and a number of other pages, sharing content on their Walls, downloading and installing software or visiting potentially malicious pages. There’s even phishing ones that ask for Facebook credentials in order to remove the feature:

“Despite Facebook’s efforts to educate users about the new profile, some people have misconceptions that make them susceptible to scams like these,” reports Inside Facebook. “We have found 16 Timeline-related scam pages, which have collectively gained more than 71,000 likes. The largest, with nearly 19,000 likes, has been around for at least two weeks.”

Unfortunately, Facebook hasn’t made it perfectly clear that once you activate Timeline you can never revert to the old profile view, and has failed to warn users about these bogus pages through the Facebook Security Page. They take them down, but obviously not fast enough, and as new are constantly popping up, inexperienced users are put in danger.