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Facebook scam warning: When your 'friends' are actually hackers

(CBS NEWS) -- Scams cost Americans roughly $50 billion each year, and according to the Better Business Bureau, they affect one in four homes. The most frequently reported scams are delivered by phone. But more than half of victims say they were contacted online through websites, e-mail, social media and more.

(CBS NEWS) -- Scams cost Americans roughly $50 billion each year, and according to the Better Business Bureau, they affect one in four homes. The most frequently reported scams are delivered by phone. But more than half of victims say they were contacted online through websites, e-mail, social media and more.

Experts say more and more people, including millennials, are becoming victims on Facebook. So what happens when a person you think is a Facebook "friend" turns out to be someone else?

For Shellie Drummond, it started when she found the Facebook profile for a friend from years back, named Deborah Boyd.

"I was on Messenger and my friend's name came up," she told CBS News correspondent Anna Werner.

Soon "Boyd" was telling her about a so-called government grant she'd gotten through an agent on Facebook. Sure enough, the agent then told Drummond she could get financial assistance from the government. All she had to do was provide some personal information, then send $1,500 in fees, to get up to $100,000 in grant money.

"The person that I was corresponding with that I thought was my friend had vouched for this foundation, and I believed her," said Drummond.

So she wired the $1,500 to Florida, then waited for the delivery driver (like the one shown on Facebook) to deliver her $100,000 in cash.

But they never came.

And when Drummond tracked down her friend by phone, Deborah Boyd told her, "It wasn't me. You got scammed."

Turns out, Boyd's Facebook account had been hacked by scammers who locked her out, then quickly reached out to try to con her family and friends, who she then had to warn: "Please do not send them anything, and delete yourself off that page. Because it's not me."

MORE: Read/watch the full report at CBSNEWS.com

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