Multiplication of Fraud Schemes on Social Media

[meadow_wind]

Just today, within 3 min on Facebook, I stumbled on 2 things.

First, a friend who "fell" for a fake contest of some travel agency giving away 10 nights in their Bora Bora hotel + paid flights. The other day it was a camping car contest. They are very imaginative with the prize you can win... Of course, you have to like the page, comment the post, share the post, and fill in your info on the "contest page". Just that one (Bora Bora) got around 330 000 daft suckers who commented on the post as per instructions.

The other type is even more sneaky and I'll post pictures for you to understand even better. I've seen that type a few times already. My mom almost got caught. It's easy to spot in Canada, because the Canadian government has passed a law about Bit-Tech having to pay dividends or something, so in return, Facebook told them off by banning the publication of News on their site. But if you live elsewhere, pay double attention.

First appears some "sponsored" news about a celebrity (paid by some random cie: this one Dubaï Outlet Mall - see #1), with a catchy title and photoshopped (this one outrageously badly done - see #3) photo. Note how they are so stupid they did not even match the names of the newspapers (#2 and #4).
You have to click the link to read the story on a copycat newspaper page (notice the wrong URL on image 2). Then they tell a story about how this celebrity is making lots of money with this new Finance app. By the time you reach the end of the article, there is a convenient link for this app for you to register...

 

[Natus Videre]

Where there are people, there is money.
Where there is money, there is fraud.
Where there is fraud, there are people.

 

[Alejo]

Yep, ads are getting crazy these days.

At least way back when they'd try to sell you something based on your searches and conversations with family members around your cellphone, conversations that they listen to without your consent but hey... at least they were "honest" "are you looking for gyms?"

Now they will straight up lie to you just to sell you the same thing. Funny how they tap on morbid curiosity, lust scandal and injury to get people hooked.

I wonder if people have grown smart to some of their old tactics and so they had to find a different ways to manipulate you into clicking something. It's also sad that a large chunk of the effort put into these campaigns is built upon cognitive knowledge that was probably attained with good intentions to describe the innerworld of humanity, but it was then weaponized by marketing.

And it's devious, because it's manipulative.

That isn't to say that there isn't creative marketing, a little while ago I was watching a video about the marketing campaign to promote The Dark night movie in 2007, and it was a brilliant deployment of resources (in the real world) to get already interested people curiously invested, and then rewarded. Those days are gone.

Anywho, rant over.