Scam - "Congratulations, You Are the Visitor No. 1.000.000!" - How to remove

While browsing the internet, you might encounter pop-ups that say “Congratulations, You Are the Visitor No. 1.000.000!”. These ads tell you that you won a phone, but you should not trust them.

Rather than giving you a free new phone, the “Visitor No. 1.000.000!” sites ask you to create an account, provide personal information, and do various tasks.

The “Visitor No. 1.000.000!” alert does not infect your device with malware, but it can lead to your data being stolen and to your time being wasted.

About the “Visitor No. 1.000.000!” scam:

Type of threat	Scam, phishing.
What the scam looks like	Pop-ups say that that you won a prize (a phone, tokens), you’re asked to create an account in order to proceed.
Problems with the “Visitor No. 1.000.000!” pop-up	It implies that you won a phone, which is completely false, it asks you to reveal personal information without a good reason.
How to protect yourself from the “Visitor No. 1.000.000!” scam	Avoid sites that show malicious ads, recognize fake giveaways, don’t reveal personal information to unknown websites, block dangerous sites with ad blockers and anti-malware tools (Malwarebytes, others).

How the “Visitor No. 1.000.000” scam spreads

While browsing the internet, you might come across a pop-up that congratulates you on being “Visitor No. 1.000.000!”.

This page shows pictures of gifts and this text:

[date and time]

Like every [day of the week] we randomly give 100 users fantastic prizes. The prize of today is: iPhone 11 Pro! Only 100 lucky users who live in Philippines will be the winners!

To see if you are one of the lucky ones you will have to select the correct box.

You have three attempts. Good luck!

Once you press the “Continue” button, you can click on the pictures of gifts. The second or third gift you click on is “lucky”. Then, you see this text:

¡You’ve got iPhone 11 Pro!

Congratulations, now you can exchange the tokens for the gifts you like the most!

Some versions of the “Visitor No. 1.000.000!” pop-up promise 10k tokens instead of a phone.

If you press “Continue” again, you are asked to sign up with your personal details, including your Zipcode and phone number.

Is the “Visitor No. 1.000.000” scam dangerous?

The “Congratulations, You Are the Visitor No. 1.000.000!” pop-up promotes a few different websites and we can’t say that they are all malicious. But we here on 2-viruses are very familiar with sweepstake scams and fake phone giveaways. And the “Visitor No. 1.000.000!” pop-up looks just like all the other scams that we have seen before.

Protect your personal information

The “Visitor No. 1.000.000” pop-up promotes sites that promise you a prize, then ask you to sign up with your personal information:

• name,
• gender,
• phone number,
• address.

Some might even ask for your credit card information. Remember – never reveal your credit card information to an unknown website. Only scams ask for your credit card info to receive your prize.

What is Pulpower.com?

In my case, the “Congratulations, You Are the Visitor No. 1.000.000!” pop-up was delivered by a reward site Pulpower.com. This site has no reputation online, so I was curious about it.

Pulpower does have some Trustpilot reviews, most of which are probably fake. Most of the reviews there are extremely short, some talk about topics unrelated to Pulpower.com. There are a few reviews (both positive and negative) asking to receive their prizes or complaining about the grind.

I created an account on Pulpower.com and looked around for a bit. This is a site for playing terrible chance-based browser games (the lottery/gambling type). By playing these games, you get a chance to receive tokens. You can exchange the tokens for tickets to enter into prize draws where you can win gift cards, coffee machines, and other prizes. You need a minimum number of tokens to apply to the draws for actually valuable prizes; a beginner can try to get a single item – a water bottle.

So, back when I saw the “Congratulations, You Are the Visitor No. 1.000.000!” pop-up, I didn’t actually win a phone. In fact, I can’t see any phone rewards on Pulpower.com. This was just a fake ad to get me to waste time on a grindy reward site.

How to avoid the “Visitor No. 1.000.000!” scam

Recognize fake giveaways

The “Visitor No. 1.000.000!” pop-ups are very misleading, so remember to be careful:

• Always be suspicious of all unexpected notifications that tell you that you’ve won something. Especially if you didn’t enter a contest.
• Ask for advice. Open another browser tab and search for the text of the notification – see if anyone else has encountered it.
• Protect your identity. Don’t give your personal information to unknown sites. Especially not your credit card info.
• Don’t waste your time with reward sites. Unless they’re by a very reputable company, they’re just a waste of your time and money.

Stop malicious ads

Pop-ups such as “Visitor No. 1.000.000” aren’t usually advertised on mainstream sites. You’re more likely to encounter them on pirating sites and monetized URL shorteners. Avoid sites that show aggressive, excessive ads.

You can use ad blockers and anti-malware programs such as Malwarebytes to block malicious ads and dangerous websites.

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