Facebook has always been filled with scams trying to steal users’ identity or money and this becomes especially obvious on the Christmas period. One of such scams spreading on the social network has ‘borrowed’ the name of Tesco supermarket chain. It foolishly says that first 100.000 followers who attend the special event have a possibility to get a free £250 Tesco gift Voucher. However, its representatives ask to ignore such misleading adverts and avoid following any links. In reality, this ‘event’ is a way that is used by scammers to generate more traffic to their online surveys and get permission to users’ Facebook pages.
According to security experts, thousands of shoppers have been tricked into this scam. They were asked to join this fake event and then follow many instructions helping to get the traffic for the scammers and even steal victims’ Facebook accounts. Though Tesco announced that they have nothing to do with this event on the 16th December, Facebook’s security team hasn’t been shutting this ‘event’ for some time posing a risk to unaware PC users.
If you are the one, who likes to follow various contests and events on Facebook, make sure you haven’t been fooled by this scam. Here is a message supposedly sent by Tesco:
WARNING: Any adverts, websites or Facebook pages offering ‘first 100,000 attendants get a Free £250 Tesco Voucher’ are a scam and nothing to do with Tesco. For everyone’s online safety we ask you not to follow any links.
If you’re one of the victims, you may be spreading this message to your online friends. Check all your Facebook apps, events and pages to make sure you are not included to scams like this one.
Source: nakedsecurity.sophos.com
