Spammers have invited millions of Facebook users to fake events in an attempt to generate income from online survey scams, according to IT security and control firm Sophos.
One event, called “Who blocked you from his friend list?”, has already tricked more than 165,000 people into signing-up, with a staggering 10.3 million users still debating whether to respond or not.
The scammers embed instructions into the “More info” section of the event’s summary, which leads unsuspecting Facebook users into visiting webpages for online surveys or competitions, designed to earn commission for those behind the scheme. In some instances, users are also asked for a mobile phone number – which is then signed up to an expensive premium rate service.
“These spammed-out event invitations and links to survey scams are one of the biggest nuisances on Facebook right now, impacting millions of users every day,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. “It would be great if Facebook was being more proactive in shutting down these obviously bogus events, as currently it’s far too easy for the scammers to fill their pockets through schemes like this.”
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