What's On Your Mind? Facebook, Cigarettes, CyberDefender, Lipton

Cindy, of Orange, Tex., is warning fellow Facebook members they could be at risk if they used Paypal or a credit card to purchase Facebook credits.

"Recently, I noticed unauthorized charges from my Paypal account on my checking account,” Cindy told ConsumerAffairs.com. “There were 18 transactions made in a two day period with over $300 for Facebook credits being removed. I contacted Facebook and they basically told me that it was probably a family member, which it wasn't, but because of their privacy act, they couldn't give me the information on who had did this. My account with Facebook was supposed to be secure. I'm now waiting on a response from Paypal and if that doesn't resolve the issue, then my bank itself will be getting involved.”

Cindy thinks Facebook needs to take stronger action against scammers hacking into accounts and she's not alone. Technology blogger Graham Cluley, Senior Technology Consultant for Sophos security software, recently penned an open letter to Facebook, after dealing with hundreds of security complaints.

"Every day, victims report to us numerous incidents of crime and fraud on Facebook," Cluley wrote. "They have been personally affected and are desperate for advice on how to deal with the consequences. A frequent refrain from users who contact us is, 'Why doesn't Facebook do more to protect us?'"

You heard it here first

Butch, of Dallas, Tex., believes that cigarettes should not be sold in stores that sell food. He writes in to say that store employees feel the same way – at least that's what they tell him.

“I ask why any supermarket still carries the tobacco drug, which kills 500,000 American addicts and another 65,000 innocent citizens who breathed toxic tobacco smoke every year!" Butch said. "The manager at Kroger said they are working to end tobacco sales and plan to be tobacco-drug-free shortly. This is good news – hooray!”

This may or may not be true, but it's interesting that a Kroger store manager would say it to a customer. Stay tuned.

Careful what you download

You may see poorly produced TV commercials for software products that claim to "clean" your computer and protect it against spyware and viruses. Be very careful what you download. Some don't work all that well and some might even make your problems worse. Robbin, of Pasadena, Md., says she regrets downloading CyberDefender.

“I paid for and downloaded MyCleanPC onto my computer and had nothing but trouble with the program,” Robbin told ConsumerAffairs.com. “It was not cleaning my PC as I was getting the same error messages time after time. I finally had to delete the program from my computer.”

In May, a class action suit accused CyberDefender of selling "bogus" software. Meanwhile, many of the ads for these products say loading them will make your computer run faster. While that's debatable, you might want to consider a utility program to give your system a periodic tune-up. A utility program doesn't protect against malware, but can be helpful in identifying and removing unneeded files that can clog your memory. Some good utility programs are actually free, such as CCleaner. 

They don't making 'em like they used to

Consumers often complain about the quality of products they buy, from television sets to toasters. Tim, of Six Mile Run, Pa., is unhappy about what he sees as another troubling trend.

“I have used Lipton tea since I was five years old and am now 60,” Tim said. “The tea itsself has been very good. The last two purchases I made, the packaging has been bad. Not the box, bur the tea bag itself. The tabs were not cut properly,and ended up a lot of times just the string was left. The last two boxes, the bags are cut where the staple is through the bag and string, allowing the tea to get into the cup about half the time. I am not used to this poor quality from Lipton!”