Reporting on the Latest Frauds, Scams, Fake Lotteries, Spams and Hoaxes
Facebook does a lot of things, but a lottery is definitely not one of them.
A friend, often a newly added friend starts a chat session with you. Typically, this is someone you added recently and don't really know, but it could also be from a friend you do know, whose computer was hacked.
A some point, your "freind" tells you that he or she works for Facebook's promotions department and that she is "delighted to inform you that your name was luckily selected among the 10 lucky winners who won the sum of $100,000.00 in the Facebook online lottery international draw. NOTE:this is 100% real and legit and the FBI are aware of this lottery promo.. You can also check this link to find the best history of the Facebook past winners"
And then the scammer sends you a link to a page of supposed Facebook lottery winners. That page may appear to be geniune to you. In fact, it probably contains malware and infects your computer when you go to the page.
This is a simple "con" or "confidence" scam. The scammer gains your confidence by appearing to be your friend, then the scammer will ask you for your personal information, including your address. The scammer will then say your winnings check will be sent to you by FedEx and they will contact you to pay a little fee, in order to deliver the check. Of course, the person who then contacts you will be another scammer posing as a FedEx employee to collect the fee.
Click here for a news story about one person's experience with the facebook lottery scam.
Do not accept friendship invitations from people you don't know. Scammers can easily steal somebody else's picture off the Internet and use it to impersonate a friend of yours or someone you would respect. You can also report the scam on this page: Federal Trade Commission Report.
Click here to report this scam to the Federal Trade Commission.
What to do if you think you have been the victim of a lottery scam
Also see this page for a sample in the UK.
Click here for the huge list of the names of the currently identified lottery scams companies
***
And please let us know about any suspicious calls or emails you receive. We look for patterns so that we can alert the authorities and victims to new scams, before it is too late!
For a comprehensive list of national and international agencies to report scams, see this page.