Facebook spammers seem to be doubling down on masquerading as celebrities while posting fake Facebook posts offering free money to those who like and share them.
Facebook spammers are setting up dozens, if not hundreds of fake Facebook pages every single day claiming to be the Facebook pages of well-known celebrities. At the time of writing, both Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Vin Diesel are both frequently targeted by such spammers pretending to be them.
Using the fake Facebook pages, the spammers are publishing posts similar to the below –
WARNING !!!. In 24 hours I will announce the winner. if you see this post Share Now! It’s Official From Me, I give everyone
$ 5,000,000-$10,000,000 who like and share this post! for those who have not won there is still a chance. for the next day I will give you a gift card, car and money, are you ready to be the next winner? “SHARE AND COMMENT” if you want to be a winner
We’ve previously discussed these scams targeting Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson here, but despite ours (and others) warnings, these scams continue to be prolific across the social networking site as Facebook users interact with the posts “just in case” they’re authentic.
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Of course, they’re not. And there are a number of ways to easily verify this, such as checking if the posts were made from the official “blue ticked” Facebook pages (the blue tick should appear after the username.) Both The Rock and Vin Diesel both have blue ticked verified Facebook pages from which they posts from.
This is an example of like-farming, which is the process to which scammers attract likes and shares to a post or page through deception or exploitation. More information on fake competition like-farming can be seen here.
These scams can be dangerous. Scammers will use their posts to trick Facebook users into visiting external websites that can be designed to harvest a visitor’s contact information in order to spam them, or even more sinister means such as identity theft or malware attacks. Or the page may contact those who interact with these fake posts in order to trick them into sending them money.
It is important never to interact with these posts. They’re scams and by sharing them (as you’re instructed to do by the posts) you’re putting your own friends on Facebook at risk too.
So don’t be that Facebook friend.
If you want to help take these fake pages down, join our Facebook community group here designed to help report these scams to get them taken down.