14 DAY TRIAL // In 2011, just before the iPhone 4S was released to the public and everyone expected Apple to launch iPhone 5, scammers and cybercriminals unveiled a series of campaigns that promised the products in advance to a few lucky users. Now, the same type of scam is making rounds, but this time an iPad 3 is offered by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO.
Symantec researchers came across a series of emails that offer the much desired prize in exchange for completing an online survey and providing some personal information.
“My name is Mark Zuckerberg, Ceo of Facebook. We have recently joined up with Apple for a one-time promotional event today, we are giving away no cost Apple iPad3 to randomly selected people who have been fortunate to be selected as one of our latest winners for today. We randomly selected users from our systems database and you have matched with our latest drawing,” reads the scam.
Once the link provided in the message is clicked, the unsuspecting user is redirected to a site that requires him to complete a survey.
The crooks that launched this campaign not only get away with valid email addresses they can use in their upcoming campaigns, but they also earn a considerable amount of money by relying on click fraud and affiliate marketing schemes.
Fortunately, there are a lot of clues that reveal the scam’s true identity and purpose. First of all, a CEO would never make so many mistakes when writing an email, mainly because everything that genuinely comes from a CEO is thoroughly checked before being sent out.
Furthermore, companies don’t practice these email lotteries to give away millions and cool gadgets to random email account holders. None of the emails that claim someone won something as a result of an “email database match” or a “drawing” is legitimate.
Users are advised to ignore these emails and report them to Facebook’s fake email notification page.