Scammers are targeting comments on viral “tag a friend” Facebook posts
A number of different types of scammers on Facebook are targeting comments made by users on popular public Facebook posts.
Facebook scammers are like sharks. Prowling the vast oceans of the Internet’s largest social media platform in the hunt for potential food. And every time we make any type of public interaction on Facebook, we’re essentially dipping our toes into that ocean, consequently risking attracting the attention of such a shark.
One such interaction we can make on Facebook that will make us a potential target is when we engage with posts published by Facebook pages. All Facebook users will no doubt be familiar with these types of viral Facebook posts. They’re typically posts that urge users to make trivial types of engagement such as “what awesome friend was born near Christmas?” or “the third person on your tag list owes you a Dominoes“.
The pages that create the posts may not necessarily be scammers themselves. Quite often they’re legitimate pages just seeking some easy engagement in the hope they can pick up some followers along the way.
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But when these posts do become viral and begin to attract thousands or even millions of comments, the sharks will close in, picking up the scent of blood. Take for example the below post that was published by an events company in Ireland asking users to tell them the name of a “wonderful person” born in January.
In only a few weeks the post garnered millions of comments, making it perfect bait for a plethora of scammers. Here are some of these scammers we saw responding to comments on this one post alone.
Romance scammers
Romance scammers were seen operating on the post, responding to comments whereby the user indicated that they were single or widowed. In this case, the scammer “Ryan” is operating a military romance scam.
Fake giveaway scammers
Replying to thousands of comments on the post were fake giveaway profiles, in this case impersonating Ellen DeGeneres. Such posts were trying to lure Facebook users to their fake profiles that in turn urged users to visit spammy marketing websites known to harvest personal information of users in order to spam them.
Of course a multitude of other near identical fake giveaway profiles were also commenting, leading people to the same scam, just using other identities.
Crypto-scammers
This profile “S. Allgood” was attempting to entice Facebook users into commenting back before then attempting to lure them to investment scams posing as crypto-currency opportunities.
Fake giveaway scammers (again)
This profile that was seen urging commenters to “inbox” him claims on his profile that he is giving away prizes, but also asks users to inbox him for “any kind of help”. Such vague claims of assistance are often associated with investment scams and identity theft.
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This one popular Facebook post and its comments highlight some very important points.
Firstly, that scams on Facebook are rife. In total, tens of thousands of comments on this single Facebook post alone had received at least one response that was a scam.
Secondly, that Facebook is still hopelessly inept at removing scams from its platform. Many of these scam links had been there for weeks and still remained active even after being reported to Facebook as scams.
Thirdly, posting on public Facebook posts that ask for this type of trivial engagement will put you in the crosshairs of scammers. So think twice before commenting, especially if that comment involves tagging a friend or divulging any sort of information about yourself. This post demonstrates that people are watching, and many of them are scammers.