Time for Scam School 101

showboat2
Sep 5, 2015
3 min read

It never fails to amaze me how easily people fall for this scam and they have no clue to the dangers involved. Look at these two pictures. Both are taken from "official" Emirates Flights Facebook Pages on 5th September. One is offering updates and specials and destination information and the other free business class flights for a year to 576 lucky people - all they have to do is like and share the page (the actual post with the competition offer is below). One is genuine and the other completely fake. How to tell the difference. Easy - one has a full stop after the brand (the fake one) and the other a blue verification tick (genuine). If you visit both sites one has been going for ages and the other was 'born' a few days ago with no other posts other than the competition offer. In just 5 hours the fake site post has gained over 65 000 likes and over 100 000 shares and climbing as I type.

When I point out to someone that they have fallen for the scam, they become very defensive and shrug it off as having no consequence, "So What?" - No harm done ... WRONG!! There are several end games of this type of scam. Here are just a few endgame examples....

1. By liking and sharing a fake post created by a cybercriminal, you are essentially joining a database of people who are all so focused on a possible big reward, they don’t check the facts. Sound familiar? Yes, they are prime targets for a 419 scam as they have already proven they are gullible.

2. By creating a fake Facebook page and offering a fake prize (with no winner ever being made public ...) it gets hundreds of thousands of fans (likes) very quickly - too quick for Facebook to respond to complaints and then the page is sold on the black market. Pages with 60 000 likes is worth about US$800. Why would someone buy a page like this? It’s got a ready to go fan base. For a small business that is an invaluable tool. They buy the admin rights to the Facebook page then change the picture, logo and details and they have an instant data base of potential customers to start spam marketing.

3. By liking the page, you join a database. You have proved yourself susceptible to fake information. The criminals behind the scam now has access to your profile and teams of cybercriminals troll through the database looking for weak spots in your profile to tailor make a scam just for you. They will use anything against you they can get – your work place, your kids, your travel habits, and even your religion. You name it.

4. You get contacted and told you are the prize winner. Well Done. Your prize is actually potentially worth millions – free flights for a whole year anywhere in the world. It’s a fantastic prize but you are responsible to pay for the admin costs or taxes or some made up nonsense. It’s only a few thousand dollars which is nothing compared to the value of the prize! So you pay via Western Union or Bitcoin or MoneyGram (and so do all the other thousands of folks who have been told THEY are the winners too) and then the Facebook pages vanishes and the creator is untraceable. Try explaining this story to your local police station.

So what can you do? Well first and foremost education and knowledge are the only weapons against scams, so find out how and why they work. There are two excellent videos currently available on the subject on the Scammed YouTube Channel. The first explains in detail how these scams work and how to spot a fake page. The second show you step-by-step how to tighten up your Facebook page and how to avoid click baiting. Here are the links :

https://youtu.be/H7On6vr398g (Like Farming & Fake Prize Pages)

https://youtu.be/LIZYvuhyf8U (Scam Proof your Computer)

And most important please spread this message - Be AWARE and SHARE.