Facebook posts offering unsealed PS4 consoles go viral
Facebook users should be wary of another fake competition spam promising to give away 350 “unsealed” PS4’s for those that like and share a post as well as comment “Done”.
Yes, it’s another run-of-the-mill fake competition spam running amok on Facebook that bears no difference to hundreds of other fake competition scams that have run before it, only this time purporting to give away unsealed PS4 consoles.
Despite being completely unoriginal, at the time of writing well over 51,000 Facebook users have opted to share the image, spreading the scam to their own friends and helping it spread virally across the social networking site.
Why isn’t that such a good idea?
Well, it’s not only because we’ve known now for at least several years that these scams don’t give anything away. They can also lead to a number of serious scams such as malware attacks, phishing scams, spammy survey scams or identity theft.
The post going viral across Facebook.
We have got 350 PS4 that can’t be sold because hey have been unsealed. Therefore we are giving them away for free. Wantone of them ? Just Share this photo & Like Ourpage and we will choose 350 people completely at random on July 30 ! as your Luck day
Coment ‘Done’ .
The post above may simply ask users to like a page (in this instance named PS5) and share the post, which may seem harmless enough, but the risks are still there. Commonly the scammers will edit a post that has already gone viral to include a link to an external webpage that can launch any of the pre-mentioned scams. So whilst it may ask to just share, comment and like it now, this can soon change to include visiting an external link.
And such a link could trick people into installing malware, entering their login information on a spoof website, or [more commonly] completing spammy surveys that harvest personal information and target victims with spam.
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Also the page you liked could initiate any of those scams at a later date, and since you’re following it, posts the page makes will probably end up appearing in your newsfeed.
And to reiterate, people who fall for these scams are exposing their own friends to it by sharing the post on their newsfeed.
It’s the equivalent to giving a conman the postal address of your friends. It’s irresponsible and the “just in case” justification isn’t valid here, not when you put others at risk through your own greed and naivety.
Do not interact with these scams. Do not share them. Do not like posts to win prizes. It’s that simple.
For more information on fake Facebook competition spam and how to avoid it, read our post here.
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