Free Facebook iPad beta-test offer is a scam! (Of course it is!)

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FlakeMistress

Registered: 25.01.09

last visit:

Posts: 213
Posted: 12.12.2010, 22:12

FlakeList users, here is yet another scam regarding the iPad that Sophos has discovered. The scam works like this:

The bad guys create a Facebook page, with a suitably alluring offer (in this case "iPad Researchers Wanted - Want to beta test Apple's latest product?"). This encourages you to "Become a fan" of the page (which, in itself, helps advertise it to your other friends on Facebook)

They then encourage you to invite all your friends to also become fans of the page, via a handy button. They say that this will increase your chances of being accepted for the bogus promotion. Of course, in reality, it increases the number of people who might be taken to the cleaners by the scammers.

Finally, Step 3 says you are ready to "Apply". However, although you are taken to a page which is designed to look like an official form on the Apple website, it is quickly overlaid by a pop-up survey.

In the example above I was asked to take a survey to prove I was a "human". After answering questions which supposedly would determine if I was more like 50 Cent than Kanye West, I was asked to fill in my contact information - including date of birth and mobile phone number - before I could continue to register for my free iPad.

And that's where the scam happens. The hackers who created this page are trying to sign you up for a premium rate cellphone service, that will charge you something like $10 a week until you unsubscribe.

Read more here:
http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2010/03/01/free-facebook-ipad-betatest-offer-scam/

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