Facebook is a playground for cybercriminals, and one of their recent scams is a fake Walt Disney World page on Facebook that supposedly offers chances for winning free vacations.
People are told to Share and Like the page in order to enter, and to comment to “double your chances.” Of course, Walt Disney World has absolutely nothing to do with the fake Facebook page, and no one is going to win a vacation. The purpose is for unsuspecting people to spread the scam via their friends’ Facebook walls and news feeds. The ultimate goal of the scammers is to harvest as many Likes as possible so the page can later be repurposed by its operators and sold to others on the underground market.
Here are some ways to help to determine if a Facebook page contest is legitimate or not:
• Look carefully at the name of the company. Scammers often add a hyphen, period, or exclamation point to the name or the name may be misspelled.
• Check the date on which the page was founded on Facebook. Typically, it’s within the last couple of days.
• Has the page posted anything else other than the contest details? If not, it’s a fake.
• Look for contest rules. If there aren’t any, it’s a fake.
Keep your eyes open while you’re on Facebook. You don’t want to be lured by an image of Mickey Mouse and end up being scammed by a rat!