14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook scammers are trying to trick users into liking their pages by promising them a BMW 435i. This is just the latest in a long series of scams abusing the reputation of the world renowned car maker.
Many people are dreaming of one day owning the latest BMW model. Scammers are exploiting this to trick unsuspecting people into helping them increase the value of their bogus Facebook pages.
Hoax Slayer has come across a fake BMW page on Facebook that claims to be giving away 2 BMW 435i cars.
The scammy posts read something like this:
“We are giving 2 BMW 435i On April 15 , 2014 2 Lucky Winners Will Be Announced On April 15
Step 1) Like this post Step 2) Comment which color you want. Step 3) share on your wall
Good Luck to everyone !”
Of course, no one wins any cars no matter how many comments they post or how many times they share the bogus messages. However, many people already took the bait. The post spotted by Hoax Slayer has already harvested over 700,000 likes.
In case you’re wondering what the cybercrooks do with the harvested likes, the answer is really simple. A Facebook page that’s liked by many people is valuable on the underground market. That’s because it can later be repurposed to advertise all sorts of services and products.
It can be utilized to lure internauts to online stores that sell counterfeit merchandise, or to rogue pharmacy websites such as the ones promoted with numerous email spam campaigns.
So if you come across such posts on Facebook, don’t interact with them. Many major companies rely on social media platforms to advertise various contests and some of the prizes they’re giving away are great.
However, whenever you want to take part in such contests, make sure that the page promoting them is the real deal. Most major organizations have verified Facebook pages – that’s the easiest way to tell if it’s legit or not.
Just because a profile has hundreds of thousands of likes doesn’t mean it’s genuine. As you can see from this example, it’s not difficult for the scammers to trick people.
If you’re already a victim of this scam and you’ve shared the bogus BMW 435i post on your timeline, remove it. Then, warn your friends to do the same. However, if you post the warning on your profile, make sure it doesn’t turn out like one of the many hoaxes making the rounds these days.