MACON, Ga. — Chances are you use apps like Facebook messenger to talk to family and friends.
But one Macon woman wants to warn Central Georgians after scammers almost tricked her into handing over thousands of dollars.
"I had a message on messenger from my brother," Patricia Welton said.
That's how it all started.
"He asked me if I had gotten my money yet. And I said what? He said the free grant money," Welton said.
She says the profile picture on her phone matched her brother's picture.
"He told me he had gotten money and he could send me the link to this lawyer," Welton said.
By messaging the female lawyer on Facebook, Welton applied for the "grant" listing her age, name, home address, and monthly income.
"I sent her all that and she said, hold on, we are verifying your information, and putting it into our database," Welton said. "And how much was the delivery fee? $10,500."
Welton says she gave the woman her bank name and told her she would send a check for the money.
"They won't expect cash, FedEx won't let you do it, they won't let you send cash, so you would have to hide it in a teddy bear," Welton said.
That's when got in her car and went to the bank, but she was having second thoughts about the Facebook message, so she called her brother on the phone just to find out it was a scam.
Investigator Michael Parrott with the Bibb County Sheriff's Office says this year he has already seen at least two of these scams happen to people.
"A lot of these Facebook scams, begin with someone looking at at a person's Facebook profile that's open, where they can look at their friend list, find out who is related, who is close friends," Parrott said.
Parrott says if you ever get a strange message asking for money, think about it.
"Think, take that time, pause, am I going to send $5,000 or $10,000, or $20,000 to someone instantly," Parrott said.
"I felt so stupid because I almost fell for this, and I always said I would not fall for it," Welton said.
Welton says her real brother did file a complaint with Facebook and she reached out to the FBI to let them know.
For tips from the National Cyber Security Alliance to keep safe, you can click here.