A post saying “OMG! Angry Floyd Mayweather Leaked TI Sex tape After Their Fight” is nothing more than a Facebook scam.
When users click on it, the post will take them to a fake Facebook website that then prompts them to share it before going further. This ensures the scam is spread even more.
After that, the site will then offer surveys, which is how the scammers make their money.
The site promises a video, but there is none. It’s merely part of a bait-and-switch tactic used by cybercriminals to entice people to fill out surveys.
A few months ago, Facebook said it would be cracking down on spam, but it appears that the social media giant hasn’t yet addressed going after bogus websites that purport to have breaking news videos, which are instead merely clickjacking scams.
“Some stories in News Feed use inaccurate language or formatting to try and trick people into clicking through to a website that contains only ads or a combination of frequently circulated content and ads. For instance, often these stories claim to link to a photo album but instead take the viewer to a website with just ads,” Facebook said in April.
According to security expert Graham Cluley, Facebook is still plagued by the scams.
“So, I think Facebook has a lot of work to do still – right now the stream of information showing up in users’ newsfeeds still contains too much pollution,” he wrote in April.
The scams often involve celebrity death hoaxes, alleged taped incidents of celebrities, or claim to have footage of current news stories, including both Malaysia Airlines’ crashes.
As security blog Online Threat Alerts notes, “Sharing this web page will only help spread this scam to other Facebook users. And, completing the surveys will only generate revenue for the cybercriminals behind this scam. The victim on the other hand, will not be able to view the video that they were promised, because it doesn’t exist. If you have shared this scam, remove the share Facebook post from your Timeline or Wall, because this will help stop the spreading of this scam.”
It adds: “If you are asked to share, ‘like’, complete surveys in order to view a video, picture or other content, is the first sign that you are being tricked or scammed. You do not need to do any of these things in order to view any content on Facebook and the rest of the internet.”
