One week ago we wrote about the rise of scam Facebook groups and as of today, these groups continue to proliferate. The groups encourage users to invite all of their friends in reward for an advanced feature on Facebook. Last week we wrote about one group which falsely claimed that you can change your Facebook “profile theme” by inviting all your friends. Today we were sent another which claims to let you find out who just visited your profile (found here).
These groups are scams that are looking to take advantage of users and incent them to complete offers. Most often the offers are the IQ quiz scams that we’ve covered relentlessly over the past year. While many users attempt to create large Facebook groups for fun, these groups are created by individuals who are running a business. By enticing millions of users to join groups, the group administrators are able to convert a large enough percentage that the generate thousands of dollars at a time.
Sketchy Businesses
It’s a sketchy business and one that spread quickly within Facebook applications last year. These advertisers no longer need to invest development time in the system. Instead they can dupe users into filling out these offers in exchange for a false product. By definition it’s a fraud so we decided to look into this further. There appears to be supposed “hosting” companies which are created for the sole purpose of hosting lead offers.
They can then claim that “customers” are using their free hosting services and that their hosting company is generating their profit from advertising hosted on the site and within the control panels. That’s what one of the employees of the “hosting company” 000a.biz told us. When I jokingly referred to their company as having a great name, the individual on the line smugly laughed in response.
As far as we’re concerned, the company could be one of numerous shell hosting companies that can state they generate advertising revenue although not all of that revenue is tracked. While 000a.biz has legitimate sites that are hosted on their servers, there are numerous scams that are set up through this hosting company and their sister hosting companies.
While there’s no way to suggest that the hosting company and these scammers are directly connected, it’s pretty obvious that things don’t appear to be the most legitimate. Would scammers really fall for their own scam ads and generate enough revenue to support these “hosting” companies?
The Facebook Group Scams
For now, the scammers have found a way to use Facebook groups and Facebook pages as a tool for driving users to their landing pages (as pictured below). Facebook has been shutting down these groups as soon as they pop up but it’s extremely difficult to stop as they are created with fake Facebook accounts. My guess is that we’ll see more of these show up before Facebook completely clamps down on the problem.
If you want to protect yourself, don’t complete any offers. Also if there is a group which sounds kind of fishy, there’s a good chance it’s a scam.
Yeah they are using CPALEAD gateway to make people do these surveys. Knowing that these people were not smart enough because they joined these fan pages they must be filling out these surveys which also is full of recurring mobile scams. Meaning these guys must be pulling in 1000's of dollars in a day. Because on average you get about a $1 per user to do survey and about $5 I believe if they do that mobile crap.
Comment by Arfan Chaudhry — January 28, 2010 @ 1:31 pm
Everything on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and other such sites should be considered the truth and nothing but the truth. I mean, why would anyone lie on Facebook?! Facebook is the greatest thing since sliced bread and my life would end without it.
So, on that, PLEASE, paste this post into your status and leave it there for at least an hour. If you do, Facebook owners have CONFIRMED they will unlock a "Dislike" button and send you a $25 Visa gift card! DO IT NOW!!!!
Comment by JH — January 28, 2010 @ 2:04 pm
If you report them to cpalead they'll have their accounts banned. Or, better yet, report it to both cpalead and facebook as misleading advertising and they'll be gone as quickly as they came.
Comment by dan — January 28, 2010 @ 6:19 pm
What is up with all the virus spam ugh its taking over. At least four friends are randomly spamming me links with viruses they weren't aware of. I don't follow facebook issues enough to know — is this related?
Comment by leila — January 28, 2010 @ 7:32 pm
In this hardluck economy, anybody could be a victim of a scam.
You must be ever vigilant, particularly with faceless people and groups and websites.
Watch out for "health" scams that offer bogus promises of cancer treatment, or say they can "cure" diseases.
Beware all the Nigerian scams ("Please send me $").
Avoid online gambling scams (protect your identity!). Just be safe and don't play them at all.
Stay clear of the "Big Money for Little Work" scams. The huge MLM scams (Digital FX and helloWorld are but a couple of whoppers! Might as well flush your money down the toilet!). They're all promises, no rewards.
Watch out for any outfits that ask for personal or banking information.
Comment by Ray — January 29, 2010 @ 8:18 am
There are also quite a few scammers from Yendi, Ghana, claiming to have been orphaned and needing $$ for school fees.
Comment by Kay Poliska — February 3, 2010 @ 10:05 am
I know that if you simply report these sites to CPAlead, they will terminate them without pay. I've worked with them as a publisher for 2 years now and know they actively ban spammers and scammers. Its unfortunate that a few rotten eggs can take such a great way to make money legitimately and turn it into a way to fraud people.
Comment by Kevin Golob — February 23, 2010 @ 12:34 pm
At least I can gain some consolation in not being the only Internet user disturbed by facebook and its third party developers their behavior in refence to privacy, policy and fraud.
I recently had my facebook account disabled due to the fact that I had complained about fraudulent behavior from a third party developer hosting a game application on facebook. The developer concerned was charging money for an ‘upgraded’ version of the game without actually making secure the application, as a result, cheating was rampant, the whole game a waste of time and money, and no refunds were being issued to members who became aware of this fact.
Within 4 hours of my posting a complaint on the developers facebook discussion board outlining the situation, both my own and my wife’s facebook accounts were disabled without explanation from facebook. Not even an email outlining cause or policy violation, due no doubt to there having been none.
We are now required, at least according to facebook after having filed an appeal, to issue them with scanned copies of government issued ID in order for any appeal to be lodged. The underlying message to facebook users? Don’t complain or make public any dissatisfaction or fraudulent behavior otherwise we’ll simply delete your account and demand private and sensitive information from you via an unsecured email. If you fail to provide us with such information and don’t wish to trust us to delete it from our servers once we’ve received it then you can go jump in the nearest lake.
Comment by Joshua Edwards — April 27, 2010 @ 5:43 pm
Why have I been banned from Facebook because I did not complete a survey?
Comment by Barbara Marshall — May 2, 2010 @ 12:00 pm
I have the same problem as Barbara Marshall and i am banned from facebook for not completing a survey! Whats going on here and what should i do?
Comment by andy — May 8, 2010 @ 5:28 am