Liking and sharing posts on Facebook seems like a completely safe and normal thing that all social media users occasionally do. Clicking the Like/ Share button is especially tolerated when a price is expected. Many advertisers and companies know how useful Facebook games may be and often employ the ‘click to win’ strategy.
However, the effectiveness of the Facebook button interaction is exploited not only by legal organizations, but also by crooks. In reality, this sort of harmless action may easily make users participants in criminal deeds without their knowledge. The scam is dubbed ‘like-farming’ by some specialists and is quite effortless to pull.
A recent Facebook campaign has been discovered to spread across the social network. The scam involves winning 300 iPhone 6s in exchange for three things: like, share, and comment on a post. The purpose behind the false ‘award-winning’ campaign is increasing the visibility of a certain page promoted by the cheaters.
Behind the Scams
Thanks to the Share functionality, the fraud becomes accessible to more people in no time. Commenting on the page increases its credibility. People easily get tricked by such schemes. Even though a scam of such kind is not dangerous, it may cause users more trouble. Cyber crooks often rely on Facebook to spread malware or to harvest their personal details. Thanks to such scams, users willingly give away their email addresses and phone numbers and become unaware participants in online survey operations. The latter are employed by third-party organizations for digital marketing reasons. Exposed credentials are also quite essential for various phishing crusades.
The Best Baits
The most adequate technique has proven to be either unbelievable news often presented in a yellow-pages style or luxurious products in exchange for likes/ shares/ comments.
The scam in question has been activated recently. Its end date is set on April 15 when winners would have been announced. Such schemes can easily be exposed to every user. When additional information is unavailable, and no selective criteria is given, the Facebook game is just another fraud.
It is curious to mention that like-farming campaigns generally begin when details on a particular upcoming product have been leaked.