Tag: Scam

Justin Bieber stabbed by a crazed fan? It’s a Facebook scam

Facebook scammers are claiming that teen heartthrob Justin Bieber has been stabbed in an attempt to trick concerned fans into clicking on a link which will earn them money.

 

The messages, which include a thumbnail image of a young man’s back badly slashed with a knife, say that the pint-sized singer was stabbed by a crazed fan outside a nightclub in Los Angeles.

A typical message spreading on Facebook looks as follows:

Justin Bieber STABBED By CRAZED Fan Outside L.A. NightClub!
[LINK]
OMG! NOOOO! Could YOU Even Imagine?!?

Other versions claim that Bieber was stabbed (again by a crazed fan) outside a nightclub in New York:

Justin Bieber STABBED By CRAZED Fan Outside N.Y.C. NightClub!

Other versions claim that Bieber was stabbed (again by a crazed fan) outside a nightclub in New York:

The truth is, of course, that no such stabbing took place, in either city. If it had, then it would surely be making headlines on the websites of established news organizations such as the BBC and CNN.But Bieber’s young fan base is unlikely to check their facts before clicking on the link to discover more about the alleged injury.

And if users do make the mistake of clicking on the link they are taken to a webpage with what appears to be a YouTube video, presumably of the fictional stabbing.

However, you will notice that visitors are asked to share the link on Facebook before they may watch the video.In their desperation to learn more about Justin Bieber’s health, young fans may be only too willing to spread the link to their Facebook friends – thus helping the scam spread virally.

 

However, the truth soon becomes apparent. Because the next thing users will see is that they are required to complete a survey before they will be allowed to watch the video.The scammers earn commission for every survey they manage to trick users into taking. They are only using the claim that Justin Bieber has been stabbed to try to lure as many people as possible into spreading their link, and taking their money-making surveys.

If you were fooled into participating in this scam remove the message from your newsfeed, and delete any messages you may have inadvertently shared with your friends. That way at least you are no longer spreading it with your online chums. You can also report the link as spam – hopefully if enough people do it, Facebook will begin to stop the scam from spreading.

Barred Lady Gaga video assault spreads on Twitter through rogue app

Watch out for tweets about a banned Lady Gaga video, currently spreading across the Twitter network.

The tweets are being posted by rogue applications that users are allowing to access their profiles in the belief that they will get to view a prohibited video of Lady Gaga

 

VIDEO PROHIBIDO LADY GAGA banned [LINK] @shakira @lady gaga como ganar dinero facil

(Please note that the precise wording can vary)

If you make the mistake of clicking on the link you are taken to a fake YouTube webpage.

 

Of course, you believe that you’re going to watch a banned video of Lady Gaga so you might very well click on the play button. Doing so, however, asks you to grant permission to a third party app which wants to connect with your Twitter account. Don’t, whatever you do, give it permission to continue. Because if you do, your account can now be accessed by third parties – who will be able to post messages in your name to all of your followers.

Hopefully the fact that the messages we have seen so far have all been in Spanish may reduce the impact of this particular attack. Interestingly, it seems that Lady Gaga herself has been having trouble with these Twitter hackers. The eccentric songstress, who has more followers on Twitter than anyone else in the world, posted a message yesterday saying:

Whoever is hacking my Twitter must answer to 10 million monsters and Twitter police. #Don’tMakeMeCallTheApostles

 

Although the singer quickly deleted the rogue tweets that had upset her so much from her page, I was able to discover them cached elsewhere on the net:

 

TAROT de shakira [LINK] clarividente de @shakira #horoscopo ganar dinero navegando

And

VIDEO PROHIBIDO LADY GAGA @lady gaga [LINK] ganar dinero navegando

The bit.ly links used in the messages posted to Lady Gaga’s Twitter page linked to the same fake YouTube page, and were created by the same person who appears to be behind the rogue application attack. Lady GagaIs it possible that Lady Gaga, or the staff who manage her Twitter account, fell for the scam themselves? And that’s why the rogue message appeared on Lady Gaga’s Twitter page?

Lady Gaga has over 9.6 million followers on Twitter, making her the most popular person on the network (yes, beating even Justin Bieber..) and a prize goal for any scammer who wants their scammy spam my links to be spread to as wide an audience as possible.

 

If you were unfortunate enough to grant a rogue applications access to your Twitter account, revoke its rights immediately by going to the Twitter website and visiting Settings/Connections and revoking the offending app’s rights. Don’t make it easy for scammers to make money in this way, and always exercise caution about which third party apps you allow to connect with your social networking accounts.