Facebook Shop For Free scam Targets Aussies

Mike Bantick
Wednesday, 30 June 2010 15:18

Your IT - Entertainment

There is a new bait and switch style scam lurking in the heart of social networking giant Facebook.  This one is targeting Australian's in particular with the lure of free goods.

Security specialist Sophos is reporting on a new lure to the unwary currently doing the rounds on Facebook.  In this scam folks are being asked to 'Like' a promotion by a large Australian retailer, but doing so leads instead to a circle of information gleaning pop-ups.

At least on the surface there does not seem to be any malware lurking in the scam, but the deception is there, as described by Sophos's Paul Ducklin.

'This is a typical bait-and-switch scam, where you are lured in with the promise of one thing - in this case, a week's free shopping at Target - but are then presented with completely different series of offers.' Said Ducklin.

According to Ducklin the scam works as follows: ...It implies that you can claim your gift card straight from the page, after Liking and Sharing it on Facebook. You cannot.

If you try to claim your Target gift card, you are swept away to another website. You have to sign up for a completely different "rewards program" first, typing in your first name, email address, gender, age and location. This still sounds innocent enough, although the Target gift card is noticeably absent by now.

Once you've signed up, there still isn't any gift card to claim. Instead, there's a choice of nine previously-unmentioned offers, targetted to the information you just entered. I pretended to be a 59-year-old Australian female, and the Target gift card I was expecting magically morphed into a special "senior deals" offer for Aussies over 55.

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