Upon the imminent 2015 release of the latest iPhone model, the iPhone 6S, a surge of Facebook posts claiming to give them away have inevitably spread across Facebook.
The modus operandi hasn’t really changed from any other Facebook giveaway spam that we see circulate throughout the social networking site each day.
The scam is spreading via Facebook posts that claim in order to win a free iPhone 6S you need to Like the Page that made the post (also called iPhone 6S), comment on the post with what colour phone you would like, like the post and share the post on your own timeline (see screenshot below.)
All of these actions will help the post spread virally across Facebook, being passed from one Facebook user to another.
This is a classic like-farming Facebook Page, using a fake Facebook giveaway as bait. Like-farming Pages accumulate followers through deception. These followers can be targeted for other types of scams at a later date.
Scammers will edit the spam posts once they go viral to include a link to an external webpage that can either install malware onto a computer or sucker people into completing spammy surveys that harvest a visitors personal information, making them the target for spam and potentially dangerous scams.
Despite being a well-known scam, these schemes always tend to sucker in plenty of Facebook users. Thankfully once you know how, they’re easy to spot and avoid.
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Firstly, despite the implication, this is not an official Apple Facebook Page. The official Apple Page (indicated as such by Facebook’s blue verification tick) would be the page responsible for any Apple-endorsed offers. The Page in question here is a relatively new Page – only a few months old – that has only made a dozen or so posts, most of which are fake giveaway posts.
It is important to be able to identify and avoid these types of scams. Even following the instructions on these posts from a “just in case” perspective can still put you and your friends in danger of falling for serious scams.
For more information on Facebook giveaway scams click here.
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