This scam popped up on Facebook this week. I saw it on my profile this morning. The scam looks harmless enough. A friend of yours has posted what appears to be a video of a laughing baby on your Facebook Wall. Clicking the link will trigger most modern browsers to throw up a phishing site warning.

Do not click on this link! Simply delete the post. Your friend is not a spammer. Their account was likely highjacked. Be a good friend. Tell them their account has been highjacked and encourage them to change their password, log out and back in under the new password.

TIP: Many of these scams originate in Eastern Europe and English is not their first language, hence the poor grammar and occasional misspellings.

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Scam Spotting, No. 9: WOW IT WORKS scam
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I myself, was hit by it on my own Facebook page. I hadn’t been on the page all day but started receiving dozens of texts from friends that I was spamming them.

Here’s how the scam seems to work:

Scam Spotting, No. 9: WOW IT WORKS scam. Event Page
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1. A victim (in this case, me) is randomly chosen from Facebook. Well, not quite randomly. It seemed to target members with more than 1,000 friends.
2. The victim’s name is added to the WOW IT WORKS app as a creator on Facebook’s Developer section.
3. The victim’s name is used to send out an invite to a fake event called WOW IT WORKS. The invite is sent to all of the victim’s friends; in my case, over 1,300 people received the scam invite.
4. The victim’s name is shown on the event as “attending”.
5. The event location is a short URL to a scam Web site that will infect the user’s machine with malware.

TIP: Always check the link and reviews of any app before adding it. If an app has thousands of players, but only a few fans, or hundreds of negative reviews, it’s a scam. It did not come from your friend. Your friend’s account was either unknowingly compromised, or they were tricked by it as well.

Scam Spotting, No. 9: WOW IT WORKS scam. App Page
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Have you seen this scam on Facebook? How did you react?

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FarmVille Scam: Click-jacking scam
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Here’s the attribute to watch out for:

1. Despite the proper spelling and artwork this time, the scammers still gave a huge clue: FarmVille has a capital ‘F’ and ‘V’. Their version is all lowercase.
2. No logo on the “Allow Access” screen
3. Hundreds of negative reviews, but only two fans.
4. The “Allow Access” screen says that farmville is for “Sending buildings to friends.” Since when?

TIP: Always check the link and reviews of any app before adding it. If an app has thousands of players, but only a few fans, or hundreds of negative reviews, it’s a scam. It did not come from your friend. Your friend’s account was either unknowingly compromised, or they were tricked by it as well.

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F’acebook Antivirus

Facebook Scam: F'acebook Antivirus
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TIP: According to Facebook Insider, there is only one way to remove this scam from your profile:

1. Open your photos
2. Click the offending picture
3. Look for your name in the list of people tagged
4. Click the ‘Remove Tag’ link that appears beside your name
5. The photo will then disappear. Just deleting it will not work.

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Farmville Cash scam

Facebook scam: FarmVille Cash
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1. Uses the correct FarmVille logo for cash, but remember, FarmVille’s currencies are not called “FarmVille Cash,” they’re called “Farm Cash” and “Farm Coins.” You can see how easily people are being fooled by that.
2. “I’ve sent you a 900 farmville cash using farmville cash! Accept this gift and send one back!” Notice the poor grammar, the improper capitalization and the call to action which, if clicked, will install the scam application on your profile.
3. Friends are randomly tagged, as is the case in most of these scams, and the app is posted seemingly by itself.
4. Album poster is different than the photo poster, and the name seems to be three different ethnic groups in one.

Additionally, we have two more screenshots for you. This first one shows that this app’s page has a number of anomalies itself.

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1. No logo
2. 1,454 people gave this app a 1-star rating.
3. 108,000+ users, but only 2 friends
4. Category is “All” instead of “Games.”
5. No recent posts

And finally, look at the reviews themselves. People who were scammed are speaking out against this app.

TIP: Just because you play a large, safe game like FarmVille, doesn’t mean that you’re safe from scams. By simply looking at the game page before adding it, you would easily see that this page is fishy. Over 100,000 people have fallen prey to this scam. Don’t be one of them. If FarmVille logos appear in your photo albums, delete them.

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Who Always Look Into My Profile??

Facebook scam:
Who Always Look Into My Profile??
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Here are the attributes to look out for:

1. The image is set up like the “Who is checking my profile?” scam.
2. The app name does not match the headline and multiple friends have been tagged at random.
3. The “Try it, really works!” comment is present. Again.
4. The album poster is not the person who owns the profile it appears on.

TIP: If you see that you’ve been tagged in a photo, before clicking, see if it’s a friend of yours. If not, do not click. Ignore. If it is a friend, click through only to see the image. If it’s not a photo of you, leave the page or report it. It’s likely this scam, or one similar.

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“Several”

Scam Spotting, No. 4: Fantasy Art
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Here are the three characteristics to watch out for:

1. Fantasy artwork that has little or nothing to do with the member’s interests.
2. Multiple friends will be tagged in the photo. We’ve noticed that the Fantasy Art scam tags twice the number of friends as the other scams.
3. Album name is “several” and the “posted by” name will not be the owner of the Facebook profile.

TIP: If you see that you’ve been tagged in a photo, before clicking, see if it’s a friend of yours. If not, do not click. Ignore. If it is a friend, click through only to see the image. If it’s not a photo of you, leave the page or report it. It’s likely this scam, or one similar.

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And it’s spreading fast! The email is short, cheesy and semi-Engrish, but nonetheless contains a password stealer that is instantly activated once you open it. The password stealer may grab more than just your Facebook credentials, so please do not open this email. The email itself has the following elements:

From: help@facebook.com
Subject: Facebook Password Reset Confirmation Customer Support
Email Body: Dear user of facebook,

Because of the measures taken to provide safety to our clients, your password has been changed.
You can find your new password in attached document.

Thanks,
Your Facebook

You can tell from reading the email, that the grammar is atrocious, the subject line is overly long and somewhat contradictory (you wouldn’t confirm something the user hasn’t done yet), and customer support would not be in charge of an email server operation. The opening, “Dear user of facebook” is clearly not how Facebook would address you. It would have your name, and if they did reference themselves, they would certainly capitalize Facebook. And ending with “Your Facebook?” Please.

More details on All Facebook.

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Life Gets Better…One Good Thought At A Time

Facebook scam: Life Gets Better…One Good Thought At A Time
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At first this appears to be a legitimate gift from a friend except:

1. Gifts do not appear in photo albums; only on walls or within the app itself.
2. The app URL is suspect (length).
3. GIfts are not generally tagged. You would generally receive a notice that you have received a gift via the Notifications listing.

This scam looks like it does the same thing as “Who is looking at my profile?” that we profiled the other day. Unfortunately the screenshot she supplied me does not show the first comment (the others so far have the exact same first comment). I will update you as soon as I find that out.

TIP: If you see that you’ve been tagged in a photo, before clicking, see if it’s a friend of yours. If not, do not click. Ignore. If it is a friend, click through only to see the image. If it’s not a photo of you, leave the page or report it. It’s likely this scam, or one similar.

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The Sims 5626

March 23 Update: Another variant of the Sims scam is appearing. The numbers will change from person to person, (i.e., Sims 9242, Sims 3876) but the app name is now appearing as “game-simulation” as in http://apps.facebook.com/game-simulation/ and oddly, the non-working link of http://apps.facebook.com//. This is likely a bad cut and paste.

Facebook scam: The Sims 5626
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Notice the anomalies however, that distinguish it from being an actual Sims game on Facebook.

1. The title is always,”Let’s enjoy this game and be one of us.” The broken English should be a giveaway. EA Games would never allow that.
2. The “girls fighting in underwear” screenshot is common. There are four screens that I have come across in this scam, but this one is the most prevalent.
3. Sims 5626. In other words, not The Sims. Author is “Joe Caba”, not EA Games. Joe Caba, by the way, is not a member of Facebook. I checked.
4. Lastly, the ever present, “Try it, really works!!” comment rears its ugly head once again.

TIP: Always check first, if it was a friend who tagged you in a photo before adding any applications. Never assume because a screenshot of a game was used, that the app is from the actual game. It only takes 30 seconds to Google “The Sims” and find out that the Sims is made by EA, not Joe Caba.

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