IKEA Facebook scam cons 40,000 users
These types of attacks have become the norm on Facebook. Last week, I posted on a similar scam involving Whole Foods Grocery.
This particular scam page had taken in more than 37,000 users by last Friday, offering them a $1,000 gift certificate in exchange for promoting Ikea to friends. At that time, the page was gaining new fans at the rate of about 5,000 per hour. The promotion, the page said, was only available for one day.
To participate, users must become a fan of the fake Ikea page, hosted on Facebook, and then invite all their friends to become fans. They are then directed to an affiliate marketing page hosted by GiftDepotDirect.com, where they are asked personal information such as name, address, date of birth and home telephone number.
After that step, the victim is told to sign up for two online marketing offers – these ones with legitimate websites such as Netflix and CreditReport.com – in order to claim the gift card.
The promised cards in these scams never show up. Who would have thunk it??
** Cross-posted from www.secur3t.com**