14 DAY TRIAL // A message claiming to offer the chance to win an Audi R8 to two lucky Facebook users has been circulating on the social network these days, the requirements of the raffle being nothing more than liking and sharing the post.
For anyone who is in the least familiar with the online environment and the way product marketing is carried out, this is obviously a scam, but for most users the temptation is simply too much to be passed, especially with a picture of the car attached.
Most would think that, in the end, all the user has to lose is a Facebook “like,” and these do not come in limited amounts. However, this time it is not about what the user has to lose as it is about what the crooks have to gain and what they can do in the long run.
Crooks are in the like-farming business
There is an underground market that trades Facebook pages, for various uses, most of them nefarious in nature. Not just any page is sold – only those that have already attracted the attention of a certain amount of users, which is calculated in the number of “likes” received.
This helps with establishing a higher rank of the page, thus making it suitable for promoting products, or most often, for running other scams. Amassing the “thumb ups” for this kind of purpose is called like-farming.
Users should be able to tell the scam
Apart from liking and sharing the page indicated in the announcement, the scammers also ask for a comment with the desired color of the car, in case of winning.
All this should ring all the alarm bells, considering that the prize is not one, but two sport cars, and the effort from the user is barely minimum.
Furthermore, from the example provided by OTA, there is no information about the company that is allegedly behind the campaign, which should also look suspicious, because in such situations, what the organization wants is to gain more visibility.
A page that benefited from the attention of a large number of users can be sold even for $1,000 / €800 on the black market.
The fake raffle message informed that the two winners would be announced today. However, it appears that Facebook was quick to spot the scam and removed the fraudulent page.
Those who have already participated in the campaign or have fallen for a similar scam are advised to unlike their preference so that the value of the page promoted by the crooks decreases.
