Fake Facebook events stealing your details

Social media users should be wary of a number of fake Facebook events that have been appearing on the website purporting to be holding day-out type events in a city near you. Many of these are designed to harvest your personal information.

Such Facebook events implore you to join and invite your friends to join as well, and many of these events also request you formally register your interest by entering your personal details onto an external website.

The aim with many of these fake events is to both attract as many attendees as possible (similar to like-farming scams that aim to attract followers to a page) as well as lure many attendees as possible to third party websites that request their personal information. This information is then given to marketing companies which will then target them with spam.

For example, we’ve previously discussed a series of fake Facebook events purporting to hold a Total Wipeout Tour that asked visitors to click through to a website to enter their details to register. In this case many dozens of identical events – all set to happen within the same few days in different cities across the UK – appeared on Facebook attracting many tens of thousands of people who quickly joined the events.

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Soon after that another series of events also appeared including a Ninja Warrior event and a Slide ‘n’ Fly water slide event, all apparently set to occur in many different cities across the UK.

However with none of these events were the organisers known nor was any contact information provided for those that wanted more details. Nor was a specific location ever listed in any of these events.

A fake Facebook event advertising fake water slide events in Bristol.

This is essentially a cunning scheme to attract followers. Instead of attracting followers to a page – which is how typical like-farming scams work – these schemes aim to attract as many attendees to an event, allowing those who operate the Facebook events to reach out to those listed as attending and try and lure them into any number of scams – usually personal information harvesting scams.

It is important to avoid joining these events or risk exposing yourself to spam. Remember, if you join an event, make sure you know and trust the company that are organising the event. The organisers should be clearly visible in the event information and available to contact. Additionally avoid events that do not make important information available, such as the exact location of the event.